


Seems to Be Our Only Way

by RurouniHime



Series: Urban Architecture [1]
Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, Architects, Bars and Pubs, Epic Friendship, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends With Benefits, Graysexual Newt, M/M, Minho's about to smack someone, Misunderstandings, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Post-Break Up, Sharing a Bed, Texting, urban planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-13 11:43:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14111625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: Look, Newt's got a presentation to give, a conference to avoid, and design edits up to his eyeballs; it would really help if he could stay out of Tommy's pants for five minutes.(Wherein Thomas comes back to town and Newt discovers just how hard it is to keep to The Rules.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will be going up in chapters, but it's fully drafted, so never fear. I plan to update every two or three days until it's done. Fair warning: This story contains swear words.
> 
> Thank you so much to coffeejunkii for betaing!
> 
> I don't own any of these people. I just like to mess with them.

_If you're under him,  
you ain't getting over him._

 

**1**

 

“You have three new messages. First message.”

_“Hiya, love, it’s your mum.”_

“Hi, Mum,” Newt mumbles around his toothbrush. It’s...Wednesday? Almost Thursday, actually. The week’s been so busy, he’s now forced to check his voicemail while getting ready for bed. He barely has time to be tired anymore.

_“Just calling to say I’m rooting for you at your presentation on Friday. Sonya, too. Oh, and I picked you up a case of those sodas you like, so come by whenever. Ta, love you!”_

“Love you too.” He spits into the sink and starts on the other side.

“Second message.”

_“This is Mutual Investments, with a very important offer on your current home loan!”_

“I don’t even own a home, you nit,” Newt calls. “Google, delete.”

“Message deleted. Third message.”

_“Hey, Newt, it’s Thomas.”_

Newt’s toothbrush stills.

_“Hey, so I’ll be in town tomorrow, for a week or so. You have a lot of conferences on your coast, you know? You should really get help for that. Or an exterminator.”_

Newt looks in the mirror. His reflection smiles back helplessly.

_“But I am peeling you away from your desk at some point, and we are going out for beers, so get ready. Minho’s—”_ Clunk. _“Shit. Phone’s about to die.”_

Typical Tommy. “Never did learn to plug in.”

_“I’ll call you!”_ The message ends.

Just the sound of Thomas’s voice is enough to speed his pulse. Newt grips the sink, ducks his head and takes a minute. At last he straightens and stares his reflection down.

A week or so. “Shit.” Usually it’s a day, maybe two.

“Alright, you bloody shank,” he tells the mirror. “You’re not doing this again.” He rinses his toothbrush and sets it in the cabinet, then adds a finger wag for good measure. “It’s not going to be like last time. Or the time before that.”

His reflection glares archly back, and Newt frowns harder. Something soft bumps his calf. He looks down to find his charcoal and cream tabby sniffing his toes. “Guess what, Vince? Tommy’s coming back.”

“Myawwwr,” Vince complains.

Newt snickers. “That was very dramatic.”

If cats could shrug.

“Okay,” he sighs, turning back to the mirror and rubbing his face. “You are in control of your own life.” _Things have changed, and this will not end up like last time._ “He might not even want that anymore.”

The mirror doesn’t answer. Newt rolls his eyes and goes to bed.

**

Minho obviously can’t be counted on for help. He picks Thomas up from the airport, texts Newt, and goes to the bar, in that order.

Newt’s presentation is well sorted now, so he can afford a quick stop at home. He sheds his suit jacket and pants, feeds the cat, slides into the bathroom to pluck at his hair for a few seconds, then it’s on to his bedroom to grab his sunglasses and root around for jeans and a casual shirt. Moto jacket, tan with the high collar and fake fur lining. “Still cold enough for this, right?” he asks absolutely no one, shrugs, and swings it on. Lights, phone, keys, then it’s back outside, trotting down the walk to his car, and off into the city again.

At the bar, Minho has commandeered the best table, even with the crowd. Newt lifts his chin in acknowledgement of his wave, and then Thomas turns and sees him.

By the time Newt works his way through the hordes, Thomas is on his feet, a smile splitting his face. “Newt!” He’s got a bit of stubble sneaking along his jaw and his eyes are tired, but they’re still rich brown, crinkled at the edges. He wears those jeans like a second thought, and he wraps Newt up in a bear hug the second he’s close enough.

“Hey, Tommy,” Newt says, hugging him back. It’s so good to see him. Tall and lithe and loud in all the right ways, still as fit as he ever was. His hair is longer, just enough to curl down toward his forehead, and it’s loose and soft, free of any product. 

God, he looks good. 

Thomas pushes him back and looks him over like a proud parent, then pats him on the chest. “It is good to see you, man. I’ve missed you.”

“Me too,” Newt says, feeling warm and sated, and… happy. Whatever else he was or is, Thomas was always his best friend first.

Thomas starts a little, as though remembering himself, and sweeps Newt forward. “Oh, hey, come on. Sit. We just ordered a round.”

“I got you a lager,” says Minho, taking a seat across the table.

“Should’ve got a blonde,” Thomas singsongs into his palm. Minho glares at him, then raises his eyebrows at Newt.

Newt snorts and nods bleakly, sending Minho’s expectant smile into dismay. “You should have got a blonde. _But._ I will drink the lager, as long as it’s pale?”

“It is,” Minho says, mollified. He kicks Thomas under the table. Thomas snickers and kicks him back.

“Hey, I told you, man.”

“Yeah, yeah, so great and wise.”

“Only in the ways of Newt,” Thomas says, slapping Newt lightly on the shoulder, then giving him a fond shake.

“Any food coming?” Newt’s stomach has been growling wretchedly since five.

“Of course,” Thomas says. “Rosemary garlic fries?”

Newt lifts his hands, ducking his head in a tiny bow. “What can I say, Minho? Boy’s two for two.”

_“Damn_ it,” Minho bursts out, smacking his fist on the table, and tossing the menu away.

Thomas cackles, pumping a fist overhead. Newt can’t stop laughing. He bumps Thomas’s knee with his own, nearing giddy, but above all relieved. 

This’ll be okay. He can definitely handle this.

**

Newt opens his eyes. The ceiling is yellow, not white. Thomas is naked. _Newt_ is naked, and there’s an empty condom packet two inches from his nose. “Oh, god.” He did it again.

He’s up so fast, the bed bumps the wall. Thomas shoots upright with a shout. 

“Oh, shit, sorry. _Sorry.”_ Newt stretches a hand out between them in apology, finds his trousers with the other hand, and shimmies them on. Thomas wheels to face him, blinking furiously until he sees Newt’s chest. His eyes travel up.

“Hi. Oh.”

“Got to go.” He searches out a shirt. He thinks it’s his.

“Oh,” Thomas says again. He scrubs his face and reaches out. “Thanks.”

Not his shirt. Newt hands it over and picks up the other one. Wait. “Did I have the _blue_ Henley?”

“Yes, you did,” Thomas says, tone going as low and full as his smirk. His eyes drop and rise. His tongue presses against his front teeth.

God, Newt could kiss that. Newt _did_ kiss that. Newt always kisses that; that mouth is like crack for sad-sack British boys, or at least he assumes, he being only one of those and therefore not a promising study population. Thomas smells like… like… But, hey now, Newt can’t think about that, that’s what gets him in trouble in the first place, wallowing around in Tommy’s smell. Thomas smells so, so good. It’s Newt’s favorite cologne that he never buys for himself. He’s addicted to the taste of it, especially coming directly off of Thomas’s— “Right, I have to go.”

“Uh, okay.” Thomas shifts on the bed, knees dropping apart under the sheet. “Coffee? Later?”

“Can’t,” Newt’s mouth shoots off, covering his arse brilliantly. “Cutting caffeine.”

Thomas’s face scrunches up until his nose tips up at the end. “Oh. How come?”

Or not so brilliantly. “Certain parties objected.”

Thomas’s face does this weird thing then, making him look like an unhappy puppy. “Oh.” He wets his lower lip. “Who, uh, who objects?”

Oh, _god,_ who objects? “Gally.” For Pete’s sake, Gally? “I’m a right terror in team meetings when I’m wired.”

“Oh.” Thomas leans back, bracing on both arms, and smiles sunnily up at Newt with his hair a total disaster where Newt dug both hands into it and then _fisted,_ and oh fuck, he is literally two seconds from diving right back into this bed.

“Okay, then. Cheers.” _Cheers?_ He’s officially an idiot.

“Bye?” Thomas offers, craning forward to watch him leave, the sheet draped over his thighs like a classical sculpture and his stomach bared right down to the dimpled hooks at his hips. Newt wouldn’t really know; he only looked back once.

**

“Fuck,” Newt groans over a triple Americano, no cream.

“So let me get this straight.” Brenda licks her lips in that way she has, where she might well be licking the stupidity off your brain. “We’re here, all the way across town at Sipsters Free Style where they sell coffee beans that have been liberated by an aardvark’s digestive tract, because you told him that Gally—”

“Fuck.”

“Our _boss_ Gally—”

_“Fuck.”_

“—told you to give up caffeine.”

Newt clutches his cup in both hands. Fair trade, made of repurposed virgin date palm sheaths. He doesn’t even understand his life anymore. “Yes.”

Brenda holds up a finger. “Excuse me.” She goes outside, bends over at the waist, and laughs until all the pigeons have fled the vicinity.

Newt thunks his head down onto the table.

Gally, why, why did he have to bring up Gally? He’s got work now. He didn’t even shower. Gally’s eyebrows will be _so_ judgmental. Newt’s cheeks are positively flaming, have been since he got in here. He pulls the collar of his shirt up over his nose and holy mother of god, Thomas is all over it, the musk of cologne mixing with Newt’s fading laundry detergent, and it’s _wonderful._

Brenda comes back inside. “Hey, stop smelling your chest.”

“Fuck,” Newt moans, slumping back in the chair with his head tipped right over the backrest.

**

It’s been ten years since they met and his attachment to Thomas Edelman hasn’t diminished one bit. He is so fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyric at the chapter head is from _New Rules_ by Dua Lipa.


	2. Chapter 2

_"No, thank you" is how it should have gone.  
I should stay strong._

_But I'm weak._

 

**2**

 

“…and so we should make an equal effort to land Simons and Glade.”

Ugh, he could pass out, right here. Sleep on the floor. They’d never notice. In fact, why doesn’t he? It’s not like he’ll be needed for anything, and the contract is already pretty much in the bag: he could even control the Power Point from under the table. And if he shuts his eyes, he’ll be back in crisp sheets and lazy heat, surrounded by the scent of musk with his hands trailing over smooth skin and taut muscles—

_“Mr. Isaacs.”_

Newt jumps, dropping his pen into his completely boring mass produced cardboard coffee cup. “Yes? Yes.”

Ava Paige peers down at him as though he’s a particularly interesting specimen of worker bee. “Are you ready for this, or should I turn the presentation over to Ms. Morales?”

 _Ms. Morales,_ Brenda mouths, smirking at him out of Paige’s line of sight. Across the table, Gally looks absolutely scandalized that someone on his team could upset the head of the company like this. 

“No, no, I’ve got this,” Newt says in a hurry. He clears his throat, gathering his folder together and retrieving his pen from his coffee so he looks competent. 

“Good.” Paige watches him for a second longer, then turns to the rest of the room. “Then let’s take a ten-minute break. The representatives for Glade will be here by then and we’ll begin.”

There’s a general rustling as the upper echelons of the board leave and the junior designers find better seats. The door opens and catering rolls in a cart laden with coffee, fruit, and tiny bagels and Danishes.

“Newt,” Gally hisses, leaning over the table with one hand splayed flat on top. “What the hell, man?”

Brenda knocks Gally’s shoulder. “Give the boy a break. He’s had a long night.”

“Right before a presentation?” Gally glowers across the table, trying to look encouraging but mostly looking exasperated. He snaps his fingers, trying to draw Newt back from where he’s now glaring at Brenda. “Hey. Okay. Are you good?”

Newt tears his gaze away. “Gally?”

“What?”

“I’ve got this,” Newt says, smiling at his team lead. It has the effect he’s aiming for: Gally visibly relaxes, letting out a huff of breath. There’s a reason the rest of the department calls Newt ‘the glue.’

He knows this presentation better than he knows his own sister. So what if he’s a little over tired? He’s got this.

**

Minho brings two Glade reps, his personal assistant, and Thomas.

Brenda snorts loudly into her bowl of fruit, then spends the next twenty seconds coughing into a napkin. Gally whacks her on the back while IT fine-tunes the projector. Newt mostly just gapes. Thomas is wearing a grey plaid suit over a red shirt, no tie, and matte black shoes. He takes a coffee, a mini bagel, and a seat in the back of the room next to Minho’s assistant.

“Bastard,” Newt hisses when Minho crosses over to pick up some juice.

“What?” Minho says, his mouth full of Danish. “He wanted to see.”

Of course; this is why Tommy’s in town after all. He’s worked at Glade Urban Planning’s New York City office for the past six years. Still. Newt takes a second to delight in the thought of kicking Minho through the window into the fountain outside.

He’s a professional, though, and Minho is his friend, so he clears his throat, adjusts his lapel, and gets out his pointer. “On behalf of the entire company, thank you for joining us today, and for considering The Last City for your new contract. My team and I have been hard at work and we have quite a portfolio of design specs to show you.”

From there, it’s rote: Newt’s not a ranking architect in the West Coast’s top urban design firm for nothing. He strolls through his presentation, taking the time to outline the special features of each design and the ways they can be doubly and even triply utilized for Glade’s contractual needs with New York City. He has set things up in a specific order to better showcase the nicer designs against the ones they’ve been trying to sell for months, and he knows exactly what’s coming and when.

Sure enough: the dreaded Homestead. The son of a bigwig at City Hall came up with it while interning during his gap year. For funding reasons, they have to make a good faith offer of the Homestead. Doesn’t mean they ever have to sell the Homestead.

Thomas scrunches up his nose at the building, and Newt barely catches the laugh before it gets out of his throat. It’s really very ugly. Looks like it’s made out of sticks. “But I for one would be much more in favor of this one.” He clicks over to the Haven, one of Brenda’s, all airy angles and warm accents, and gets the appropriate oohs and aahs. Glade loves Brenda’s work. Loves the whole team, really. This is precisely how Newt first met Minho, over five years ago.

“Tell me more about the Homestead,” says one of the reps, a cool-eyed man who looks a bit like a rodent. He leans forward in his chair, eyebrows raised. “It’s really quite breathtaking.”

“Of course,” Newt says gamely, and clicks in reverse. Behind Rat Man, Thomas crosses his eyes at Newt and puffs up his cheeks, holding his breath.

Oh god, and now he’s grinning and he can’t stop. “The, uh, the Homestead. Ah, built for group meetings with acoustics in mind—” And now Thomas is laughing, shaking silently in the chair next to Minho and miming cutting his own throat. _Oh, fuck you, too, Tommy,_ Newt thinks.

**

 _“Bastard.”_ Second friend in an hour.

“You’re very welcome.” Thomas sticks a strawberry in his mouth, sucking his fingertip and making Newt swallow wrong.

“Who the hell is that guy?” he asks to cover up his cough.

“Some head honcho from Corporate. Janson. And yes, he really is that much of a tool. Hey, bitchin’ presentation.”

“Charming. Why are you here?”

“Wanted to see.”

Newt rolls his eyes. He shoves his hands in his pockets. Brenda and Gally are talking with Minho and the other Glade rep, Paige is making nice with Janson, and Thomas has come over ostensibly to speak to the presenter. God, that suit. It fits sinfully well, lengthening already lean legs, the jacket just short enough to show off Thomas’s best assets. Newt’s favorites, anyway.

“So. Lunch break?”

“It’s ten in the morning, Tommy.”

“Hm.” Thomas picks up another strawberry, rolling it between thumb and forefinger. “Feels later.” 

“Maybe you should have eaten a bigger breakfast,” Newt says, staring as he bites off the tip of the strawberry with his perfect teeth.

“Maybe I should have.” The way Thomas is smirking at him, he knows what’s supposed to happen next. But Newt is at work and Tommy is no threat here. He’s not about to jeopardize his position. He’s got himself completely under control.

**

Two minutes later, he’s in the office next to his own with Thomas’s tongue in his mouth. The office is dark, being renovated for the new designer they’re looking to hire, and all there is, is an empty bookshelf, a filing cabinet, and a desk. Thomas kicks the door shut, takes Newt by the waist, and lifts him up onto the desk.

“Oof,” Next grunts, nipping at Thomas’s lip. “A little warning, yeah?”

“Take the mystery out of everything,” Thomas mumbles, swiping inside Newt’s mouth again. He runs his hands up and down the thighs of Newt’s suit trousers, then tugs Newt forward at the backs of both knees. “Shit, you look good in this.”

Newt hisses as their bodies come into contact. “Could’ve bitten your lip off, you twat.”

“Worth it,” Thomas murmurs, then drops to his knees right there on the rug and opens Newt’s pants.

“Bloody hell.” Newt leans back on one arm, gripping the desk’s edge, breathing as though he’s run up the stairs to the roof. He digs the fingers of his free hand into soft, dark hair and works on not choking Thomas.

And completely fails when he looks down and sees Thomas’s bright, laughing eyes fixed on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's **[Thomas's suit](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/57/e4/b6/57e4b60c07757cc6286b7d5270c96d5a--dylan-o-brian-dylan-thomas.jpg)**. Rawr.
> 
> I picture Newt wearing something **[similar to this](http://cdn01.cdn.justjaredjr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/brodie-suit/thomas-brodie-sangster-interview-06.jpg)**.
> 
> Lyrics at the chapter head are from AJR's _Weak._


	3. Chapter 3

_In any place you'll allow, I want you now, I want you now._

 

**3**

 

Newt’s bed hasn’t seen much mileage this week.

Which… _good._ The last thing he needs is Thomas spread across his sheets like he has always belonged there. Thomas, he suspects, would look good on anyone’s sheets. Probably has, if Minho is to be believed, and Minho’s not a liar.

“He’s super popular.” Minho chomps into his chicken sandwich, poking a stray bit back into his mouth with one finger. “You know, at bars. Clubs. At that ULI regional meet and greet last quarter, they took us all out to this retro speakeasy. It’s the same thing. He walks in, he owns the place.”

“Of course he does.” Newt has long since perfected the art of bland acknowledgment. In Tommy’s case, there’s even a bit of sarcasm.

“I just mean, world’s not a vacuum. You should jump on that if you still want it. He shucking smiles, they all come flocking.”

No doubt all the way into Thomas’s pants, Newt thinks miserably. “As if either of us have time for that.” He crunches a crisp, licks his thumb. “Or petrol money.”

“‘Petrol,’” Minho scoffs, as he always does. Newt kicks him under the table.

“I mean that he’s in New York. I’m here. Nothing’s changed, there’s no point.”

Minho looks at him for a little too long, like he wants to say something, but then just goes back to his food. “Well, he’s here now.”

“I know.” He clearly says that with a little too much whine, the way Minho’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Newt, you dumb shank. _Get_ some.”

“You think I haven’t been?” he snaps, and Minho’s eyes go wide with glee. “Not—I mean—”

“I _knew_ you disappeared fast after that meeting! Hot damn, Isaacs, I have underestimated the both of you.”

“Slim it, Minho, for god’s sake,” Newt grouses, thoroughly annoyed. He decides right there: no way is Thomas making it anywhere near his bedroom.

**

“God, you taste like butterscotch,” Thomas breathes against Newt’s lips.

And here they are. In Newt’s bedroom.

“That’d be the ice cream.” He wriggles the buttons on Thomas’s shirt free and pulls him in by his tie. Thomas’s lips are sweet with Oreo and vanilla, the flavor collected at the corners of his mouth. 

Alright, one time. One time’s not going to hurt anything, right? He licks into Thomas’s mouth and gets a hand down his pants. Thomas groans.

“Ah, hell, Newt.” For a moment, there’s clutching, fingers digging into Newt’s sides. Then Thomas turns them and, with a firm push, sends Newt sprawling backward onto his bed. Thomas crawls over him, grinning into another kiss. This one’s deep and gives no quarter.

Newt hauls him in, legs tucked around the backs of Thomas’s thighs. At the edge of his sight, Thomas’s hand fists in blue sheets. Newt plucks the tie free, finally, wraps a hand round Thomas’s nape, and drags him down.

**

His phone rings, midway through a design edit and a hurried dinner. Newt brushes crumbs off the blueprint and answers. “This is Newt.”

“This is your conscience,” growls a voice.

“Hi, Sonya.” Of all the people he is privileged to know, his sister brings a smile to his face the fastest.

“Hiya. What are you doing?”

“Working.”

“Ugh, of course you are. Newt. It’s six o’clock on a Saturday. Go home.”

Newt looks out the window. Indeed, the sun is throwing pink and orange all over the surrounding buildings and turning the hills beyond the city into hazy golden humps. “Yes, Mum.”

 _“Go home!”_ calls another familiar voice in the background, and Sonya laughs.

“Yes, Mum!” they both yell together.

“So.” He leans back in his chair, feeling giddy and silly. “What’s my little sister up to tonight?”

“Going out with Harriet.” Harriet is kind and lovely and thinks his sister hung the moon and the stars. One day, Newt is going to walk Sonya down the aisle into her arms and then blubber like a baby. “We’re seeing that new time travel movie.”

“Oh, I hear that’s good. It’s got, what’s his name, you know, the one with the huge hair. And the woman from that show where they’re CIA agents trapped in the arctic, right?” He waits. “Sonya?”

“Oh my god, he’s _there,”_ she says, sounding utterly scandalized.

“What? Who’s where?”

 _“Thomas,”_ Sonya shrieks. “Mum, Thomas is there,” she calls out. Newt’s face goes hotter than an oven.

“No, he’s not,” he lies, “what are you talking about? Thomas isn’t here.”

“Oh, please, you get this _tone_ when he’s around.” Now she sounds positively jolly. “Say hi for me! But not while you’re shagging, that’s just weird.”

Newt splutters. “What—We are not _shagging,_ Sonya, stop being a prat.”

“Psh, you are. Do you not even hear how your voice changes? Of course you don’t. My idiot brother. Is he still as hot as he was?”

Hotter. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh,” she intones, back to her deep voice, “you’d know better than anyone else on this planet.”

“Sonya. Leave it.”

“So he _is_ there.”

“Nothing is going to come of anything.”

“Why not?”

Newt struggles to find the argument. “Well, we’re headed in different directions—”

“Oh my god, Newt, it’s been six years since you guys called it off! Shit changes, and you’re not headed in different directions, you’re basically in the same field—”

“Sonya, I’m in urban design. Architecture. He’s in city planning.”

“Which crisscross so often they’re practically incestuous! Boinking each other! Like you’re still boinking him.”

Newt squints into the fading light. “It’s just a little fun.”

“This is _fun_ for him?” Her voice goes high, and wow, that got serious real fast.

“It’s fun for both of us,” he assures her quietly, hand raised to placate as if she can see it. “No strings, Sonya.”

“Yeah, maybe for him,” she mutters. Newt rubs his face. The last thing he wants is to mess up Sonya’s attitude toward Thomas. Sonya used to love Thomas.

“He’s giving me nothing more or less than I want,” he says, so matter-of-factly that for a second, he believes it.

She doesn’t say anything immediately. Then he hears her sigh. “You know what? He probably thinks he is. He’s always been unconscionably stupid over you.”

Newt doesn’t know what to say to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics at the chapter head are from _Striptease_ by Hawksley Workman.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: when I first texted about "Newt/Thomas" to coffeejunkii, autocorrect made certain adjustments. Ergo, this fic has been known from the beginning as "wet thumbs."

_I want you close, and close ain't close enough._

 

**4**

 

On Sunday afternoon, he joins Thomas at a baseball game, not because he’s particularly a fan, but because the tickets are free—offered up to employees of Glade NYC and guests—and because Thomas asks. Baseball’s not really Newt’s thing. According to Brenda, everyone in greater NorCal knows what _Newt’s_ thing is.

He arrives halfway through the second inning, tracks down his seat from the confirmation Thomas texted him, and finds Thomas yelling along with the crowd, a baseball cap perched backward on his head and a greasy bag of popcorn in one hand. It’s not only Thomas, though. A couple other guys are there in the same general state of excitement. Thomas abandons the game as soon as he sees Newt, however, leaping up and wrapping him in a hug. He introduces him around, and Newt does his best to remember names.

“Ah, the infamous Newt,” calls the guy immediately on Thomas’s other side, a cheerful man with dark skin and a Hillsboro Hops t-shirt on. Thomas’s cheeks pink up.

“I see my reputation precedes me,” Newt answers, removing his sunglasses. “Oy, Tommy. Got a bit of a sunburn there.”

Thomas elbows him, but he’s smiling.

When Newt turns back, Thomas’s friend is staring at him. “Wait a minute, Newt as in Newton Isaacs?” His eyes go wide. He leans back, taking a much more obvious look. “The one who won the Pendleton Grant for that long-term care facility they built up in Portland, that Newton Isaacs?”

Thomas grins like he’s been waiting all day for this.

Newt sticks his thumbs in the pockets of his khakis, feeling awkward and pleased. “That’s the one.”

“Damn.” The guy pumps Newt’s hand. “I work outside of Tigard. That building’s a thing of beauty.”

“Efficiency, too.” Thomas slaps the man’s shoulder. “This guy here is in Green Urbanism. Zero emissions, sustainable landscaping.”

“Sit down,” someone yells from a couple risers above them. “Come on!” 

Thomas glowers at the interloper, but drags Newt and his friend back to their seats. “Newt, this is Wilson Fry. He’s your number one fan.”

“Wilson,” Newt starts, but Thomas’s friend holds up a hand.

“They call me Fry.”

Thomas snorts. “We call him Fry _pan.”_

Newt looks at Thomas, then at Fry. “Oh, why’s that?”

“Because I can _cook,”_ Fry states.

That smile is infectious. Newt leans around Thomas to pat him on the back. “Good that, mate. I can literally only cook to save my life.”

“That is so not true,” Thomas declares, hopping up to reposition with his leg under him. He slings an arm around Newt’s shoulders. “Newt has also saved my life through cooking many a time.”

Newt shrugs, enjoying the weight of Thomas’s arm. “I can follow a recipe alright.”

“Really, though, it’s good,” Thomas goes on.

“But not as good as his?” Newt points to Frypan. Thomas looks back and forth between them, his mouth pinching.

“Well... no. But Frypan’s really talented. _Really_ talented. Moonlights as a chef on weekends, going-to-culinary-school talented.”

Newt slinks an arm around Thomas’s waist and gives him a squeeze. “That’s okay, Tommy. I forgive you.”

The way Frypan’s looking at them, Newt wonders just which brand of infamy Thomas has let on about, and whether it was appropriate for public consumption. But there’s absolutely nothing disapproving or judgmental in Frypan’s expression, so Newt doesn’t pursue it. Let him think what he wants. They’re good friends with a surprising number of benefits, and that’s all. Newt’s here to enjoy the game, mostly the company, and to relax for the evening.

**

After the game, Thomas follows Newt home in his rental car. With Vince winding around his legs, Newt wows Thomas yet again with his penne bolognese (from a bag and a jar respectively), and a salad. It’s not impressive at all. Not that you’d know it, the way Thomas keeps moaning about the garlic bread.

“Hey now, don’t feed that to my cat.”

Thomas _pfft_ s. “Please, you think I’d waste this excellence on a cat?” He crouches down to scritch Vince’s back down by his tail. “No offense, Vince.”

Vince sniffs and wanders back to Newt’s side.

Vince always pretends to hate Thomas, but whenever Thomas sits still for long enough, Vince ends up on his lap purring. Aloofly.

“Yeah, play your games. Joke’s on you, though: this is the shirt Mary loved all over before I left.”

“How is Mary?” Mary is Thomas’s calico Manx, short in the leg and long on affection, and Vince has a thing for her, if the way he always messes with Thomas’s clothing is anything to go by.

“She’s good. She’s staying with my neighbour while I’m gone.”

Newt nods. Mary’s an utter sweetheart, and a fabulous host.

Thomas’s phone goes off in his pocket and he takes it out. “This is Thomas. Wow, you’re in the office late.” He glances at Newt and turns a little away from him. “Yeah, no, go ahead. I mean, it’s not my space anymore, right? …Uh huh. Actually, you know what, I’m with a friend right now, can you… Okay, great, email it to me. I’ll have it signed off by tomorrow. Sure. And Jeff? Thank you so much for doing this so quickly.” He hangs up, massages his eyes, then puts his phone away. “Hey, I’m going to use your bathroom, okay?”

“Everything alright?”

“Oh, yeah. Just some forms I didn’t finish out before I left. Back in a minute.”

“Yeah.” He waves Thomas off, and concentrates on straining the pot of noodles without dumping scalding water all over his front. He slices and adds tomatoes to the salad, then gives it a lackluster toss. The sauce is still simmering away, so he pulls plates and silverware down, then goes to ask Thomas what he wants to drink.

He finds him in the tiny hallway on the way from the bathroom, looking at the photos on the walls. He must have taken his contacts out because he’s got his glasses on: thick, rectangular black frames that accent everything and shove Newt straight into a slew of pleasant memories. Thomas has kicked off his shoes and socks near the front door, and his bare toes flex against the floor as he leans forward. He smiles at a photo of Sonya and Harriet. “Your sister still in peds physical therapy?”

“Yeah. Loves it. I can barely tear her away, even for dinner once a month.”

“Who’s this?”

Newt probably looks a bit soppy right about now. “That’s Harriet.”

Thomas glances at him. “They serious?”

“Very.”

Thomas looks back at the photo. His smile softens. “I’m glad. Oh, hey, there’s your mom. Ha, she looks great.”

“Had a good time, that holiday.” A summer run back to Devon where she grew up. And that’s right, this is the first trip that Thomas has been in this particular apartment. This time around, Newt had forced himself to stop lazing about and actually hang some of his pictures, make the place feel less like a hotel suite. He’d got the idea from Thomas’s apartment, to be honest: small, as only NYC apartments could be—Thomas refused to live in anything he would feel obnoxious about paying for—but the walls were always covered in photos: of Thomas, of his mother, of places he’d traveled and the people he’d met. There had even been a few old ones of him and Newt, from high school trips, and one where they’d posed in Bangor, Maine with a group of other people at the unveiling of a building a few years back.

“Food’s almost ready.”

“I can smell it,” Thomas says, appreciative.

“I’ll be right back.” Newt goes into his room, stands there shifting his weight for a few seconds, then decides, what the hell, and strips down. He pulls on sweatpants and an old exercise vest, thin and soft from sleeping in, and goes back out, his heart a little farther up his throat than he wants. But Thomas only gives his new outfit a cursory glance before handing him a plate of food. His mouth is full (again) of garlic bread.

Truth is, Newt’s _sore._ His thighs, his calves, his back and his shoulders; even his forearms are tender. All these muscles he hasn’t used this way or this much in nearly a year—since the last time he saw Thomas.

His scalp itches from the sun this afternoon and his cheeks and brow feel toasted. Plus, he’s not been getting much sleep this week. Obviously.

Newt’s flat is cozy. His TV’s in his room on the wall across from the bed. Only place for it. They sit side by side against the headboard, legs crossed, digging into their food and redirecting Vince every time he sticks his face in their salads. Newt turns on the TV, mostly so they can complain about something.

The room is warm, the bed soft. Thomas strips down to his undershirt and tosses his tee at the chair. It flutters to the floor. Vince immediately leaps upon it, making Newt snort. He snags a cookie from the bag between them and crunches into it. “Your Airbnb’ll be lonely at this rate.”

Thomas’s brow creases. He squints at the TV, but Newt gets the feeling he’s not really seeing it. “I’ll have plenty of time to mess around there.”

A whole week, still. It warms Newt’s innards. He perches his plate on his stomach and wiggles his socked toes under the blankets. Too hot, maybe, but he doesn’t much care. Thomas’s arm bumps his as he scoops up a bit of sauce. The TV drones. Newt’s slipping into a stupor when Thomas says, “Lawrence is retiring.”

Newt is suddenly wide awake. He sits up, barely catching his plate. “Shit. What, really?”

Thomas looks at him, amused. “That so hard to believe?’

Newt frowns. Tries to calculate. “Well, he’s only, what, fifty-eight, fifty—”

“Sixty-two.”

Newt sinks back against the headboard. “Wow. Never thought it’d actually happen.”

“Me neither.” Thomas picks at a thread on his jeans, then brushes it aside. “Gonna be a big change.”

“Are you excited?”

Thomas huffs, only half a laugh. “Newt, he’s possibly the greatest mind in urban development in the past century.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Newt sets his plate down by his knees and turns onto his side facing Thomas. “He was, okay? No one’s arguing that. But the future of urban development… That’s with you, Tommy. Moving forward.”

Thomas looks straight ahead for a moment, then cranes round to peer at Newt. “The future’s with _us.”_ He points at the door, eyebrow cocked. “Don’t think I didn’t notice your award out there.”

Newt’s face heats. “Yeah, well. It was gathering dust. Thought I should hang it up.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see you get that.” Thomas’s smile is crooked now.

Newt nudges Thomas’s hand where it rests between them. “S’alright. We can’t all be perfect.”

Thomas just looks at him, his smile crooked in a different way, dark fringe falling into his eyes. His fingers turn under Newt’s, catching at his palm. Newt curls his thumb over Thomas’s. Thomas’s throat bobs in the strange light.

“Newt, can I ask your advice?”

“Always.”

“I have an opportunity that…” He exhales, long and slow. “That I wasn’t expecting. And if I don’t take it, I don’t think it will come again.”

Newt stares at him, trying to read him, but there’s nothing there but Thomas, and that genuine entreaty that has always tugged firmly on Newt’s heart. He licks his lips and Thomas’s eyes drop to follow. “I think you should weigh your reasons, then,” he says at last, struggling to reorient. “For taking it and for not taking it. Just because it might not come again doesn’t mean it’s the right choice, right now.”

Lines form on Thomas’s brow, and the look in his eyes drops back, farther away. He nods, slowly at first, then again. “That makes sense.”

 _Did it help?_ Newt wants to ask. Thomas’s palm is growing hot under his hand, and the air in the room thickens, pressing on all sides. 

“Thank you,” Thomas says.

“You’re welcome.” _I think._ Newt draws a much needed breath and glances at the TV.

“Ooh, Great British Bake Off.” He wrestles the remote out of Thomas’s lap and turns it up, feeling tight in all his joints.

After a second, Thomas laughs. “Desperate for tips?”

“Psh, absolutely not. Anyway, you told Frypan I’m an excellent cook.”

“I don’t think ‘excellent’ was the word I used.”

“Shhh,” Newt says, waving him off. “It’s starting.”

They watch an episode, Thomas joking about who’s secretly shagging whom like he always does, then commenting on how Newt must really miss his people. Newt snickers for pretty much the entire hour, until his stomach is a sleepy, aching mass of muscle and good food.

Eventually, the warmth and the big meal catch up with Newt. He slumps little by little, until he’s hitched up only at the shoulders, his hands crossed over his belly, eyelids drooping. His contributions to the conversation taper off and the two of them descend into a comfortable silence. It’s gone dark outside; the room is yellow, made soft by lamplight. Vince is a warm lump over Newt’s shins.

At some point, a movie starts, and Thomas shuts off the bedside lamp. Newt finds himself starting from a half-doze, a bizarre dream-conclusion to the opening sequence running away with itself in his head. He turns over, away from the TV’s glow, and drifts. The sound of Thomas breathing next to him, sipping occasionally at a can of soda, soothes.

A touch to his hip brings him almost back to the surface. “Newt?”

The room is completely dark now, and silent. He doesn’t know how much time has passed. Thomas’s weight is warm and full all along his back, and Newt is so comfortable, so sucked down into the void that it doesn’t feel entirely real. Thomas’s mouth brushes his ear. “Newt.”

Newt mumbles—he’s sure they’re words, somewhere—and bats groggily over his shoulder. For a second, Thomas doesn’t move. His hand tightens at Newt’s hip, right over bare skin where his vest has slid up. Then a small sound comes, a huff of air. The bed shifts; Thomas lies down.

“Night, Newt.”

The response doesn’t quite make it out of his throat. Newt turns his face into the pillow, burrowing deeper. A new line of heat settles against his back, and it takes him a long while to realize that it’s Tommy’s arm, pressed along the length of his spine. The only parts of them that are touching.

And then he’s out.

**

By four AM, Vince has made himself into a hat around Newt’s head, purring loudly enough to wake the dead. Newt pushes his way free, wincing at the pull to his hair, and stumbles out of the room, down the hallway to the bathroom. He uses the loo, washes his hands, and returns to his bedroom, rubbing at his face.

He’s nearly back in bed before he notices the other side is empty. Thomas’s clothing is gone and the house is absolutely quiet.

He checks the tiny sitting room, but the couch is vacant. Their plates are clean and stacked in the dish rack in the kitchen. Thomas’s shoes are nowhere to be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics at the chapter head are from _Close_ by Nick Jonas and Tove Lo.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it turns out that instead of eight chapters, there will be nine. Because I can't count.
> 
> This chapter is coming earlier than usual because I probably won't have time to post tomorrow. It's PacRim night, baby.

_My mind's getting in the way. Can't feel what my body say._

 

**5**

 

On Tuesday, Thomas finally _goes_ to the conference he’s here for, piling into Minho’s ugly green hatchback and heading to the suburb closest to SFO. It’s huge—internationally attended. Brenda’s the one going this year from The Last City, and Newt knows she’s been run off her feet. It has a packed schedule; they always do, and they’re already midway through. Thomas has a panel and a round table each on Tuesday evening, a workshop to spearhead with Minho on Wednesday morning, and a booth to run all that afternoon. He won’t be free again until Thursday night. Glade even sprang for a room for them at the host hotel so they don’t have to drive back and forth.

Newt welcomes the respite. He ploughs through Glade Oakland’s contract proposal until one, then wanders down to the café on the corner for lunch.

Aris perks right up when Newt walks up to the counter. “Hey there, Newt. Your usual?”

“Nah, let’s mix it up a bit.” Newt peers up at the board, humming, then points. “Grilled tuna melt.”

Aris looks where Newt’s aiming, then back at Newt. “So your usual, but hot.”

“And with cheese,” Newt corrects, indignant.

Aris snickers and shouts the order into the back. He hands Newt a number on a stick. “Five minutes.”

Not that the number is necessary: the lunch rush is mostly gone—that’s why Newt comes at one—and he gets his usual table, tucked in the corner by the window. There, he alternates between fiddling with his phone and watching Aris wrestle with the register printer paper behind the counter.

They get along really well: they like the same books, laugh at the same questionable humor, and both have an embarrassing interest in Dwayne Johnson movies. Newt smiles a lot around Aris, and until last week, he’d been flirting with the idea of seeing where it could go. Last week, he got… distracted, but today the distraction is not here. Aris brings him his sandwich and soda, and chats while he wipes down the nearby tables, finally straddling a chair backward with his rag in hand to laugh at Newt’s rendition of Gally’s latest ‘come at me’ moment when a client dared to make corrections to one of his designs. 

Today, it just feels good to have his regular lunch, to see a familiar face. Visit with his usual routine again.

What to do with all of his free time tonight? He considers seeing a movie, but everything showing sounds bland with just himself for company. With Thomas in the seat next to him, he doubts he’d remember much of the film at all, but he would certainly remember the commentary muttered out the side of Thomas’s mouth, and the fizz of the soda as Newt inevitably snorted it up his nose.

Newt finds himself grinning stupidly, and huffs a breath. “Alright, come on now. You went eleven whole months without him, you can damn well find _something_ to do on your own for one night.”

Two nights. Newt sighs. 

He tries to catch up on a book he’s been reading, but it’s been so long that he spends more time paging back through the first third to figure out what the hell he missed. Eventually he gives up and opens his laptop. Once upon a time, he swore to hell and back (and to his mother, actually) that he would never, ever take his work home with him.

Around nine, his phone pings.

_this club is strange_

Newt abandons his computer. _How so?_

_well for one thing there are zombies everywhere_

“What?” _Zombies?_

A series of Boomerangs comes in. Newt clicks them open to find an aproned zombie carrying a tray of blood red shots and sticking her tongue out, a waving bouncer with gash makeup all over his enormous arms, and a—

    _What the FUCK is that??_

 _that,_ Thomas texts, _is the intestinal parasite special_

_…I think I’m going to be sick._

_try sitting next to it_

_You poor man._

_the things i do for networking_

Newt laughs out loud. _Why are you even there if you hate it so much? Go to bed._

_you think this was my idea? no this is some high roller trying to be trendy OMG ISTG I WILL CUT THE NEXT PERSON WHO OFFERS ME A COCKTAIL WEENIE FINGER_

_Settle down there, kiddo. Deep breaths._

_thank you_

_Seriously, why are you bothering? Someone important?_

_rat man seems to think so but its just a rival firm from manhattan_

Newt raises his eyebrows. _The impression you’re aiming for is ‘good’, Tommy._

_whatever i know these people, this guy is gonna try and poach one of us_

_Give him Minho._

_i should. hes the one who keeps buying the specials_

_So feed them to the head of the rival firm._

_then ill have to explain why theyre funny_

_You could always pretend you don’t speak his language._

_newt distract me_

_Text me under the table while you talk to him,_ Newt types gleefully. _If anything, anything at all, makes sense, I’ll buy you lunch when you get back._

_ooh strong hand or weak hand_

_I leave that to your discretion._

_its in the bag oh shit hes coming_

Newt waits, not really expecting much. Thomas isn’t a slouch about his job after all, no matter how much he may hate the glad-handing aspect. Except that Thomas doesn’t text back. At all. Not even a garbled thumbsmash. 

Eleven o’clock rolls around. Newt swears and shuts off his phone. He goes to the toilet to brush his teeth, chucking his mobile at his bed as he passes the doorway and feeling unaccountably prickly.

He ends up buried in blankets and brilliantly tired, looking forward to the best sleep he’s had in a week. By himself. Alone. With no one jostling the mattress or worming onto his pillow.

And he does sleep well. Until 2:36am.

After an hour of tossing and turning, he determines that there is no square inch of this bed that is remotely comfortable anymore. He stretches an arm out beside him, all the way to the far edge of the mattress. Stares at cool, empty sheets.

He turns on his phone and squints at the screen. No new messages.

“Bloody buggering _shit,”_ he growls, and gets up.

Might as well get some more work done.

**

With Brenda at the conference all week, it’s easy to excuse not going home at quitting time. Newt finishes up his edits to the Glade proposal and sends them back via email, then turns on NPR, grabs the stack of department-wide design edits Brenda hasn’t got to yet, and dives in. They’re pretty nice, coming up from the per diem junior artists, but some are really rough around the edges, and he knows the practical details have been irking Brenda to no end. 

His phone buzzes, a call coming in, and for a second, Newt just looks at it. But it’s Minho. He hits speaker. “Hi there.”

“I’m driving on four hours of sleep,” Minho moans. “Keep me awake.”

Newt leans over his mobile on the desk. “You’re driving for thirty miles. At most.”

“Yeah, in Bay Area evening traffic.”

Newt hums, then concedes. “Yeah, alright.”

“Get—Use your damn turn signal, that’s the only thing it’s fucking there to— _Thank_ you! And thank you, too, Newt.”

“How’s the conference, then?”

“I said keep me awake, not bore me off the edge of the Bayshore freeway.”

“You can’t put that sort of pressure on me. Fresh Air’s a rerun tonight. I’m in a precarious state.”

Minho scoffs. Loudly.

“Wait, you’re on your way back already?” Newt asks. “I thought you two had a workshop in the morning.”

“Now Thomas has the workshop. Ben was supposed to meet with the permit office tonight about that development going in near Emeryville but he’s down with that bug everyone’s getting. Glade called me in last minute.”

“So, what? Thomas is taking the BART back tomorrow?” Newt has a car, he could go pick him up.

“Nah, he ran into an old friend at the club last night, from New York or something. Says he’ll come back with her.”

Newt frowns. “The rival high roller?”

“Who? Oh. Oh, no. That guy came fully loaded, though. He’s the one who brought Thomas’s friend with him. Extra carrot to get Thomas to listen to him.”

“Oh.” Her. He’s beginning to see why Thomas abandoned his phone. “Wants Thomas to leave Glade, does he?”

“Wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference,” Minho mutters. “Not anymore.”

What the hell does that mean? “Why not anymore?”

“Look, could you just talk to him about it already? He is really unbearable right now. You’re the only one who can advise him on this one anyway.”

“I think he asked me about it the other night,” Newt says slowly. Whatever it is. “Or tried to—”

“Fucking hell, does anyone on this peninsula know how to zipper? No. No, they do not. Newt. _Newt.”_

“Yes.”

“I’m going to kill a fellow citizen.”

Newt puts his pen down and rubs his forehead, trying to focus. “Look, just… punch your dashboard or something. Do not run anyone off the road.”

“But we’re right by the bay.”

“Is Lawrence really retiring?” he asks, and Minho pauses.

“Yeah, Glade NYC announced it at the keynote today. How did _you_ know?”

“Tommy.”

“Ah. Figures.”

“Did they…” There’s a headache building now, right behind the bridge of his nose, and he’s got a bad feeling. There’s only one good reason he can see for Thomas to tell him ahead of time like that. _If I don’t take it, I don’t think it will come again._ “Have they picked a replacement yet?”

Minho pauses again. Things get quieter; he must have closed a window or something. “Well, we all know who the owner favors.”

Newt shuts his eyes.

“But he’s too young, man. This is the board we’re talking about. They’ll never give it to him, and he wouldn’t take it anyway.”

Newt isn’t so sure that Thomas’s age will stop them, not entirely. At the very least, they’ll want to start grooming him. With Lawrence—the bane of Thomas’s existence for the past three years—gone, there’s nothing in Thomas’s way. He could revolutionize Glade NYC.

He thinks again about Thomas’s questions two nights ago.

“Newt.”

“Yeah, okay. Yeah. You’re right.” He knows Minho can hear the change in his voice. He seriously does not want to deal with the fallout right now.

Minho, in one of his uncannily perceptive moments, diverges. “Look, seriously, talk to him when he gets in. They’re closing up shop at six, and then we’re all getting together tomorrow night. At The Maze.”

“Yeah.” Newt knows that bar. It’s not too far from his place, but bigger and rowdier than he usually goes for. Still, with a group, it’s fun. “What time?”

“Eight?”

Newt pastes on a smile that he wants Minho to hear. “I’ll be there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics at the chapter head are from Demi Lovato's _Body Say_.


	6. Chapter 6

_For how long I love my lover?  
Now, now, for how long, long I love my lover?_

 

**6**

 

Right from the beginning, the night feels off.

It’s hot in The Maze, and stuffy with bodies. Somehow, Minho has roped Aris into coming—what the hell was he thinking?—and Thomas brings a passel of people from the conference. One of them is a tall, light skinned woman with long, dark hair, who laughs like she’s been smoking and nudges her shoulder into Thomas’s like she’s known him for years.

“This is Teresa,” Thomas says, a hand at the small of her back. He’s in black jeans and a red scoop neck that frames his collarbones. With his dark hair, it should be illegal. “She works for WKD, that rival firm in Manhattan. We used to—Oh, hang on, there’s my round.” He points with the hand holding his pint, and beelines away from them toward the bar, winding between crowded tables and trying unsuccessfully not to spill on anyone. Teresa shakes her head after him and turns back.

“You must be Newt,” she says, clasping his hand for a shake. “Tom’s told me all about you.”

 _Tom?_ “Good things, I hope.”

She winks. “Oh, the best.”

Whatever conversation follows, all Newt retains is that Thomas has told him nothing about Teresa. 

Newt drinks a pint, then another, glad he ate something before coming over, because no one seems interested in ordering food. The table is soon overflowing with mugs and pilsner glasses, beer puddled at the center where Frypan knocked over the dregs of a pitcher. Newt’s palms itch. He snags an empty chair before another table steals it, eyes the space stretching between him and Thomas, and struggles gamely with small talk. He’ll get over there eventually.

Except the whole night, Thomas is surrounded. He laughs with everyone, that great bray with nothing held back and no embarrassment to be found. That laugh has always roiled Newt, deep inside where Thomas relentlessly wrenches things around, where ultimately all the lust begins. Complete strangers wander over, cheerful-drunk and drawn by the group’s uncontained good humor. Newt gets a round without partaking, ingratiating himself immediately with Thomas’s conference buddies, but he can’t remember any of their names. They each have a story about Thomas, _you remember when he talked that legislator right out of his lawsuit in front of the entire finance board?_ and _I have never seen someone eat so many Goldfish crackers in one sitting_ and _he could damn well own New York if he wanted to, that city loves him!_

Newt excuses himself and gets a third pint.

On the trip back, he finally weaves his way to Thomas’s side, spilling half his ale before he plunks it down on the table. Minho, wearing a frown that looks very out of place, gets up abruptly from his seat next to Thomas and walks away. Newt eases into the chair before anyone else can. Thomas immediately grabs Newt’s pint and takes a long draw. He wipes his mouth and claps Newt on the back, flashing him the swiftest of smiles. The touch heats the span of Newt’s shoulders. Thomas launches back into some story involving city ordinance and earth movers.

The night wears on. Teresa murmurs to Thomas with their heads almost touching, her fingers tapping the table between them to make whatever point she’s after. Minho shouts at Newt about dartboards and Newt declines, to the vocal dismay of everyone in a twenty-foot radius. Servers smile at Thomas as they pass by collecting glasses. Half the bar denizens clear out, more flow in to take their places, and every time Thomas goes up to grab someone a drink, someone else corners him, standing extremely close, getting out their phones, no doubt to give him numbers, and no, _no,_ Newt’s not going to be that guy, the one who gets territorial, except that he totally _is:_ plastering himself to Tommy’s side, hooking fingers round his shoulder, telling jokes that no one but Thomas will get just to make him kick back his head and laugh like that again. 

They’re all staring, they have to be. Well, Brenda’s over by the jukebox with Frypan so they’re not, and Minho has challenged Gally to building a castle out of shot glasses. But Aris cracks a shy smile at Thomas, and this Teresa leans into Thomas’s side, tipsy and snickering, and Newt can’t quite stop himself from acting like an arse, then looking in on this catastrophe with an abject sort of horror. It’s not that he doesn’t recognize himself. It’s that he _does,_ all too well.

And then Minho really is looking at him, as if to say ‘see what I mean?’ and Newt’s frustration with everything just bubbles over.

Turns out it’s too loud for it to matter.

“I have to get up early for my panel,” someone says, “can anyone give me a lift to the Concordia?” And then everyone’s scraping chairs and shuffling around for car keys, calling out neighborhoods and directions for those trying to harangue transport. 

“I’ll catch a ride with Newt,” Thomas pipes up, digging in his jeans for his wallet. He slaps a sizable tip down on the table, and Newt doesn’t want him in his car, except for how he does, and before he knows it, he’s driving, hands clenched white around the wheel while Thomas yammers about what a great night it was, how good it was to see Teresa, how he hasn’t relaxed like this in ages. His knees sprawl apart as far as the bucket seat will let them, his hand resting high on his thigh and his throat bared by the tilt of his head.

Newt drives them straight home.

Thomas perks up when they park, looking around. “This is your place.”

“Yep.” Newt throws the gear shift into park and rockets out of his seat. By the time he rounds the front of the car, Thomas is also out, stretching both arms over his head. He gives Newt a curious smile.

Newt grabs his hand and doesn’t let go until he’s got him pressed against the closed door of his bedroom, the lamp on and shadows everywhere, kissing Thomas so hard he can taste the half pint of ale that Thomas stole from him two hours ago on the back of his teeth.

Thomas gives back as good as he gets, thrusting his chin up as he sinks against the door. It’s messy and hot. _Thomas, Thomas, Thomas,_ Newt’s senses blare. The smell of the bar has climbed into his nose and tainted everything. He fists Thomas’s shirt in both hands, to tear the coating from him, from this, but it refuses to come free.

Thomas strips off his shirt with a single tug. Newt wrestles free of his own clothes, bumping hard: elbows, a knee, even Thomas’s chin. Thomas sputters a laugh, mouthing his jaw, but Newt doesn’t feel very funny. He walks Thomas out of his jeans, peeling them down his hips and shoving them away. They’re soft, well-worn and graying around the seams. Thomas fumbles with Newt’s fly, jerking Newt forward at the waist in his hurry. Lightning shoots up Newt’s spine. He bites at Thomas’s mouth, twists a hand back into his hair. Pulls him forward.

They make the bed in a tangle of limbs. Thomas drops flat atop it and tugs Newt into his lap. Newt’s pulse shudders as though something is kicking his heart directly into his sternum, and he knows he’s sober enough, he didn’t drink nearly enough to bother with, but everything’s unbalanced, tipping further and further sideways where he can’t get his hands around it. Thomas’s mouth crooks oddly, a hand reaching to brush Newt’s throat. Newt scrabbles at the bedside drawer, unearthing condoms and lube with shaking fingers. Thomas’s chest rises and falls under him, rapid, deep breaths.

He prepares himself quickly, strokes Thomas until his fingers seize at Newt’s flanks, then rolls the condom onto Thomas and lowers himself down. It’s tight; Newt squeezes his eyes shut and stills, minutely aware of the way Thomas’s palms glide up and down his thighs. Thomas’s stomach tenses. His body hitches out of his control and he whispers an apology. The sound echoes in Newt’s ears.

He waits for it to get easier. When it doesn’t, he rolls his hips, and Thomas rises with a curse, clutching Newt’s sides. His knees bump against Newt’s back; he thrusts up, and Newt waits for the flood of endorphins.

It doesn’t come. He bites his lip. The first beads of sweat gleam at Thomas’s throat. Newt traces his thumb through them, feeling oddly detached.

The rhythm is stilted, all gasps and half words, sweat between their thighs and sheening Thomas’s brow. Thomas’s eyes are smoky-dark; tendons strain in his neck, a flush blooming up his chest leaving his areolas dusky, nipples hard. His hand stretches against the base of Newt’s throat, palm flat and hot, fingers pressing like brands. The skin of his forearm pebbles in a rush.

He’s the most gorgeous thing Newt has ever seen, and it’s doing nothing.

Thomas’s hand skates like a kite, down Newt’s chest, sliding back up. His grip at Newt’s hip clenches and releases in time to their rocking bodies.

But Newt can’t… His throat closes. He curses himself silently, bears down, searches for it, the pull and the heat and that pure, intangible ache that Thomas always ignites at the bitter core of him. It’s gone. The arousal, the fervor, all of it; everything’s dark and cold and confused. His breath speeds, juddering from his lungs, yet his heartbeat sinks to a dull _thud thud thud._

No. No, this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. God, why is this happening now? He needs this, damn it, not the bristly frenzy, as though his skin doesn’t fit; this is the way other men make him feel, but not Thomas, _never_ Thomas. Newt’s not even hard anymore and he can’t get it back. He whimpers, hitching forward, and then Thomas sits up off the bed, couching Newt in his lap and knocking the air into the back of Newt’s throat.

Everything stops. 

Newt reels, the blood beating behind his eyes in red and black flashes. His head swims, and then suddenly Thomas’s hand comes up, cups his cheek. His eyes skip back and forth over Newt’s face. 

“Newt?” Hushed, out of breath. “You okay?”

He feels his mouth working. But he can’t even swallow, his throat is so tight. He’s shaking. All he can do is watch as an odd sort of devastation flickers behind Thomas’s eyes.

A second later, Thomas is lifting, dislodging Newt. Pulling out. Newt’s heart jumps; he grabs for Thomas, but Thomas’s arms just enfold him, firm at his back. A hand settles right against the blade of his shoulder. Newt can feel the length of each finger.

He opens his mouth but Thomas shakes his head. He shifts, settling Newt back into his lap. “Sorry.” A grimace trips faintly over his face and vanishes. “What’s wrong?”

God, nothing’s _wrong._ It just happens sometimes, but not for years, and not with this man. Not since clumsy fumbling in a cramped backseat, two kids who didn’t know up from down. He tries. He really does. “I’m.” 

Thomas waits. His length presses hard between them, into Newt’s belly. Newt reaches down, but Thomas catches his hand.

“Newt.” It’s so quiet, but it arrests Newt completely, fixates his reeling mind in place—just for a _second_ —and he hauls in a much-needed breath.

“I can’t,” he manages, through his teeth. “I don’t know what’s wrong, I can’t—”

He falls silent. Thomas’s hand drags up his back and down again. It takes Newt a while to claw out of the haze, to realize that the touch is questioning, and nothing more.

“Come on,” Thomas whispers, the huff of air brushing Newt’s ear. “Talk to me.” 

“I need—” He presses the words into Thomas’s shoulder. “I need you to—”

It’s too big, too shapeless, and for all that he’s tucked full length against Thomas, he’s completely adrift. All he knows is that Thomas isn’t touching him like he was anymore, isn’t in him anymore, isn’t—it’s not supposed to _go_ like this. “Tommy,” he pleads, fingers tightening on Thomas’s shoulders. Fuck, they can’t _get_ any closer, what is he hoping to—

Thomas pulls back. Recognition widens his eyes. “Is this, is this like the times we used to—” 

Newt nods so fast his neck hurts, exhaling in a painful rush. His cheeks flame. He tips his face back into Thomas’s neck.

“Okay,” Thomas breathes, fast between them, but nodding. Nodding. “Okay.”

He shifts again, spreads his knees, and Newt… Newt can’t do anything but hang on, cling to Thomas and let him settle them. He barely registers that Thomas is touching his face, cradling with both hands. “Newt.”

Newt meets his eyes. Anchors: they always have been, in a beloved face. Thomas just looks at him for a long time, his thumb stroking absently over Newt’s cheek. Then he leans forward and nips softly at Newt’s lips.

Thomas tastes warm, drowsy, the bare tinge of beer and a lick of salt. Dazed, smarting from how empty he feels, Newt is slow to respond. He’s breathing too quickly, his chest bumping against Thomas’s. Thomas whispers something he can’t make out, but just the _shush_ of it pulses. Newt blinks. 

Beyond the trip and rattle of his heartbeat, the room comes back into focus. Familiar shadows on his walls, the rustle of his own sheets against his shins. His home. He exhales, hard.

And Thomas… Thomas kisses him, as chastely as if they are sitting on a park bench in the sun. Newt can’t fucking breathe.

Thomas turns Newt’s head with one finger and brushes his lips to the tender skin in front of Newt’s ear. Shoulder, chin, throat: kiss after slow kiss, and all the while, Thomas’s other hand keeps a steady track along the length of Newt’s spine. Into his hair and down again to cup his nape. A shiver shakes free of Newt’s frame. Thomas doesn’t linger: his hand slips to where Newt’s shoulders meet and he squeezes. Presses with his thumb. His fingers curl into the ends of Newt’s hair. Newt’s heart hammers in his ears. 

Thomas nuzzles into the line of Newt’s jaw with just the tip of his nose, and the cold tangle in Newt’s belly ignites again, a silent flicker. He grips Thomas, too hard.

That whisper, again; this time he makes it out: “Breathe.” Thomas rubs the end of his nose against Newt’s cheek. “S’okay, just… breathe for a minute.”

Newt forces himself to obey. To inhale. The scent of Thomas fills his nostrils, settling low inside him and calming the turbulence. He feels the rise and fall of Thomas’s chest, the bump against him out of sync, and concentrates. It takes too long, far too long, but then, at last, he matches the rhythm, inhaling as Thomas inhales.

Thomas meets his eyes. His breath puffs over Newt’s mouth, weighty in the stillness.

And then they are kissing, deep, heady kisses, the kind Thomas used to give him back behind the baseball dugout, when there was nothing to do but lie in the grass and shield their eyes from the sun, doze the summer away. He doesn’t touch the rest of Newt’s body; not his chest or his hips or his cock. He nuzzles languidly into Newt’s mouth and teases his lips and feels his way through each kiss, pulling back just enough to whisper—

Against his cheek: _S’okay._

At his forehead: _I got you._

Into his ear: _You know I’ve got you._

The ember blazes anew in Newt’s belly, clenching through him first in faint then in crippling waves. Newt nearly sobs with relief. Thomas’s scent floods him, nose, mouth, lungs, heart, and he hitches forward into Thomas’s belly with a groan, both arms slung over his shoulders, dropping in a quivering heap against him. Thomas tightens his arms around him, rubbing at Newt’s hips, thumbs dipping at last, stroking up the line of his pelvis, and still he _kisses_ Newt, laves him with tongue and lips and finally teeth. Newt’s body is on fire, itching all over, coming apart with how badly he wants. Thomas’s name spills from his lips again, again, like a prayer.

“You ready?” Thomas rasps, throaty and raw, and Newt just nods and nods. Clenches his eyes shut. Closes his teeth over the throb of the heartbeat at the side of Thomas’s neck.

And still Thomas kisses him. He kisses him until Newt is panting, grasping helplessly at Thomas’s sides and hard as a rock, then lowers Newt to the bed, threads his fingers deliberately through Newt’s, and fucks him slow, sharp, _deep,_ until Newt shudders completely apart.

“Tommy,” Newt breathes after he comes. His mouth feels bone dry, but the taste of Thomas is all over his tongue. He squeezes his eyes shut and rides the first aftershock. “Tommy.”

Thomas touches their mouths together, a feather of a kiss.

**

In the blue dark of morning, Newt watches, muddled, as Thomas pulls his clothing on.

“Tommy.” It croaks from him. He stretches his legs against the tangle of sheets. Thomas’s shadow bends close. Warm lips press to Newt’s temple. 

“Shh,” comes the whisper. “Go back to sleep.”

Newt mumbles, licks his lips and tries to sort the hazy wrongness. He catches at Thomas’s hand. Thomas squeezes his fingers, and for a second, things feel right again. 

Five minutes later, Newt levers himself up in bed, the belated dismay shocking him fully awake—he drove, Thomas doesn’t even have a car here—but by then, Thomas is long gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics at the chapter head are from Ed Sheeran's _I'm a Mess_.


	7. Chapter 7

_My youth is yours._

 

**0**

 

When Newt Isaacs was sixteen years old, he met the most exquisite boy in existence.

Of course, he was a little too young and hip to be using words like ‘exquisite’ to describe other people. But Thomas Edelman was three cuts above the rest; when he came on the scene—Mr. Carson’s class, AP Chem—Newt forgot entirely that he was supposed to be titrating a base with a highly corrosive acid and burned a hole right through the rubber top of the work station.

‘Exquisite’ came later. Thomas was athletic, far more popular than Newt and in different circles, but he was also _nice,_ and _sweet._ And that really wasn’t a turn on for Newt, who didn’t tend to trust sweetness when it came out of jocks, except that Thomas was impossible to resist. Newt floated to him like a particularly drunk moth to an especially bright flame. Within a week, he was Newt’s lab partner; within two, he was Tommy. And within three, he was lodged securely at the epicenter of Newt’s first sexual crisis.

Newt always knew he liked boys. Boys were lovely, muscled, and lanky. Against the right backdrops, they could arrest even the most untouchable heart. But that was as far as it went. Boys, while beautiful, did not make Newt want to have sex _with_ boys. He didn’t tell many people about this; they tended to say things like “Well, you’re young still” or “You just haven’t seen the right person yet,” even “Don’t worry; one day you’ll fall in love and then it’ll be different.”

Newt didn’t think so.

He liked the idea of sex. Porn was no stranger, and masturbating felt great. But the idea of someone else’s hands on him, helping him, someone else against his naked body, or god forbid, someone _in_ him—It was alien and strange, and made Newt a bit squirmy. Even kissing sent an unnerving shiver through his belly, and it wasn’t the sort of shiver all the rest of the boys or even the girls talked about.

He couldn’t explain it if you asked. He just knew it was different.

Except... Tommy.

God, _Tommy._ For the first time, Newt woke himself up at night muttering another’s name. For the first time, Newt couldn’t keep someone else’s face out of his thoughts; he whiled away his history classes playing his tongue over his lips and wishing it was Tommy’s tongue instead.

For the first time in his life, Newt wanted to be touched. It scared him half to death. 

The thing about that was that Tommy refused to allow him to feel scared for long. Thomas never knew exactly what had Newt in a strop, but he did know exactly how to defuse the situation, how attentive to be, how close to stand, and when a distraction was most needed.

Thomas ran like the wind. Yes, in track, which Newt would always have a soft spot for; he’d run track himself until he broke his leg sophomore year. But this was not constrained to Thomas’s athletic prowess: once an idea took root, Thomas shot off in all directions to see it through. Newt began to get in the way, to redirect Thomas and spiral all that energy into something that made sense. He figured out pretty quickly that if he didn’t, Thomas was likely to not merely burn holes in work stations, as it were, but to blow up the entire lab.

And Thomas _listened_ to him.

Sure, Thomas was often right—the juniors that pushed that freshman Chuck into doors and lockers and other people were pathetic excuses for human beings, “…but perhaps, Tommy, taking on all four of them at once in a deserted hallway after sixth period isn’t the best of ideas, yeah?” 

“Alright.” Thomas sighed and frowned at the floor. “Alright, Newt. What do you suggest?”

What Newt suggested was befriending Chuck. Circling the wagons. Introducing him to Alby, the senior who ran yearbook. Surrounding him, loudly and energetically as only Tommy could manage, until Chuck was more popular than any freshman had a right to be—indeed, he got invited to junior prom, a strange sequence of events Newt still can’t explain—and those juniors were left to scowl in corners and be jealous, and finally, to try their own luck at cozying up to their old victim.

That last, at least, had been easy for Newt to head off on his own. He wasn’t popular like Alby or magnetic like Thomas, but he’d been told he had a certain bluntness that carved straight through all the shit the other high schoolers threw at each other, and these juniors were no exception.

“You’re an old soul,” Thomas said once. “Maybe it’s your luscious accent.”

“If you’ve got a crush on me, Tommy, you only need to say,” Newt lobbed back, leaving Thomas open mouthed and sputtering after him.

Thomas made him forget himself. The old Newt would never have dared such a statement. The old Newt would have known better than to plant that seed.

Thomas Edelman kissed Newt Isaacs for the first time at midnight on New Year’s Eve, senior year, with fireworks blasting apart in the street behind them and kids screaming down the block. And Newt didn’t feel weird about it. He felt weird for not feeling weird about it. But Tommy was Tommy: eventually that faded away, too.

Their first time was in the backseat of Tommy’s old Volvo. Newt had no idea what he was doing and was terrified. Unexpectedly, the fear was not for the sex itself, but that he’d do it wrong, shame himself and Thomas. Disappoint.

Thomas, on the other hand, had no idea what he was doing and didn’t care. “Ow,” he laughed, smacking a fist against the car’s ceiling where he’d just bumped his head. 

“Very suave,” Newt offered from where he sprawled on the bench seat, both hands cocked behind his head. “Very sexy.”

“Oh, I’m the sexiest,” Thomas murmured, leaning over and kissing into Newt’s mouth. 

_Yes, you are,_ Newt thought. _Unequivocally._

It was cramped. It did get a bit awkward, things got sweaty, and eventually it hurt a little. But it also felt good. Newt was far from disappointed, and Tommy... Tommy smiled afterward like he’d never seen anything as amazing as Newt’s face, and kissed him for longer than they’d taken to have sex at all.

The next few months were the most blissful of Newt’s life.

He knew it wasn’t love. Endorphins, more like. Infatuation, and clearly adoration. But that didn’t matter. Just being with Tommy quickened Newt’s pulse, cleared his head. Sharpened the world.

When they discovered they both had a passion for architecture, Newt started to reconsider love.

Just... opening to possibilities, really. Nothing more. But how else could they be so suited to each other? The summer after graduation, they spent their time kicked back on Newt’s roof where they could still get the WiFi signal, choosing their classes at the local community college with an eye for transfer later; nights, they were in the back of Tommy’s car, kissing and other things until the windows fogged. Thomas touched Newt like Newt’s whole body was the end game and he didn’t care if neither of them came, he was so distracted by the exploration. Sex with Thomas was an adventure, and lovely, and also hilarious. Tommy was game for anything, and when it didn’t work—as it sometimes didn’t, especially for Newt—he just shrugged, said a sheepish ‘oh well’, and they moved on.

**

Community college was not much different from high school, except that they had smaller classes and sometimes those classes happened at night, which was new and novel. Newt’s mum got him a used Subaru for Christmas, but he and Thomas usually rode their bikes and gorged on chicken wraps at the student café instead of pooling their money for petrol. Thomas joined the track team again, and as part of a class project, they both put together a fundraiser to send the kids in Thomas’s neighborhood to an architecture summer program. The first year was both a blur and a bask: they aligned their coursework, got jobs in the local coffee houses, and researched four-years to transfer to at the end of their second year.

Sonya graduated from high school, and Newt’s mum threw her a party by the lake, where everyone got sunburned and stuffed to bursting on barbecue. Newt commandeered the inflatable raft from Chuck’s cousins and paddled out to the middle of the lake with Thomas, in time to lie back in the warm water collected at the bottom with their toes dangling over the sides, and watch the sun set behind the hills.

“I’m glad,” Newt said, listening to the water lap against the side of the raft. 

“About what specifically?” Thomas had black swim trunks on, and a pale blue shirt opened over his chest. Pink had swarmed up his throat and huddled on his cheeks. He looked overheated and beautifully tired.

Newt’s cheeks felt tight from the sun and wind. His body was one big, lazy ache. “That we’re doing all this together.”

Thomas took off his sunglasses, wound his fingers with Newt’s, and kissed the inside of Newt’s wrist. “Me too.”

**

Midway through their second spring semester, Thomas showed up on Newt’s doorstep waving a flyer he’d picked up at the career counselor’s. 

“It’s an externship. Two and a half months. Not paid, but look where it is.”

“Whoa, Glade NYC?” The urban development mogul was huge, stretching from one end of the country to the other. There was a local office not a city away from them, in Oakland. “In their main office, no less.”

“I know people who would kill to get this spot.”

Newt held the paper back out to him. “You should do it,” he said, only to watch Thomas’s frame slump.

“It’ll never happen,” Thomas told him glumly. 

“What do you mean? You’ve got the grades. It’s only an essay, and not a very long one. Come on, I’ll help you with it.”

Thomas shook his head and ticked his fingers against the notice, down at the bottom where the entry fees and living expenses were listed. “Mom could never afford that.”

Thomas had never lived in Newt’s neighborhood, full of big houses and pricey cars. His mother made about two thirds of what Newt’s mum made, and had no divorce settlement to help. It had never really colored how Newt and Thomas interacted before, but now it sucked at Newt’s innards and made his fingers stiff where they carded through Thomas’s hair.

Of course he told his mum.

Newt’s mum, who by that time had coffee regularly with Thomas’s mother and went to the same free yoga class in the park on Saturdays, offered to loan Thomas the necessary funds. That argument took a good week to win, but Newt’s mum was possibly the most stubborn individual in existence, and Thomas didn’t stand a chance, especially when his own mother came at him from the opposite direction. 

“You need to do this, baby,” she said, while Newt hovered awkwardly in the hallway, having arrived earlier than planned on a Sunday to hang out. She touched Thomas’s hair, affectionate fingers that Newt could see through the open kitchen door. “You have an opportunity here that you cannot pass up. _I_ need you to do this. You need to get out of here, see what there is to see.”

Still, Thomas got himself two more jobs, both in the evening after classes. Newt would barely have seen him at all had he not parked himself in the first booth at the ice cream shop with his latest homework assignment while Thomas handed out cones, or followed Thomas from house to house while he mowed and trimmed and raked.

Thomas was exhausted all the time. But he would lie there on his bedroom floor with his head in Newt’s lap while they tinkered with his essay, looking happier than Newt could remember. So it was all worth it. 

**

He got the spot. 

“Of course,” Newt said, to which Thomas always replied, “Only because you helped me write that fucker, duh.” But he was grinning. 

At the beginning of summer, off he went, already texting Newt about how homesick he was while he boarded the plane. Texts and emails came fast and furious, leaving Newt smiling, looking forward to August, but drunk off of Tommy’s excitement and glad in his heart. 

_i think they like me newt_

    _Of course they do, you shank. How could they not bloody love you?_

**

Glade NYC loved him so much they offered him a job.

**

When Thomas got back, he was moody and quiet, letting Newt do all the talking. Not that Newt had much to say, but he filled the silence as best he could out of necessity. When Thomas did speak, it was worried. It had edges.

“Who the hell offers a kid like me a full-time position?” It was a good offer. Thomas had explained it in a rushed tirade the night after his return, pacing the length of his tiny bedroom and running his hands through his hair so much that it stood up on end. He was doing it again today.

“Someone looking to the future,” Newt joked lamely, then fell quiet, sitting on Tommy’s bed and watching him pass back and forth. He was taller, his hair shorter and his eyes older. The frown had dug two lines between his brows.

“Well, I can’t do it,” Thomas stated, and slapped his flanks to emphasize. “Class starts again in two weeks. I am getting this damn degree if it kills me.” _For my mom,_ he didn’t have to say. _Because no one else in my family has._

“I thought they were going to send you to school,” Newt said carefully, looking at his hands and wondering when his heart was going to start beating again. “As part of it.”

“Well, yeah, but… I have my plan mapped out already.” Thomas slumped down beside Newt and turned to face him, crossing his legs. He ticked it off on his fingers. “Another year, transfer to Cal Poly, finish our majors. Intern at one of the firms in SF and get hired on after graduation.”

That was Newt’s plan. Word for word. He stared first at Thomas’s hands, and then at Thomas himself.

“Tommy,” Newt said, feeling strange and hollow, not quite there. “I think you should go.”

He would always remember how betrayed Thomas looked, then, right into his eyes. Disbelief warred; Newt snagged Thomas’s hands in his, took a deep breath, and told him about the job opening he’d been eyeing two cities over while he waited for Thomas to come home. Another good job, one Newt’s entire body yearned for, almost as much as it yearned for Thomas.

“Design is all well and good,” he said. “God knows I love it. But you’re more interested in the practical applications. You always have been. You’re not going to get that at a design firm.”

“Yes, I will.”

“But not like you would out there.” He could see what Thomas was capable of. If given full rein, Thomas, already a brewing storm, would swell into a force of nature. “Come on, Tommy.”

Thomas looked down for a long time. Then to the side. His jaw worked, and with every click, Newt felt the pit inside sinking deeper and deeper.

“No,” Thomas said, finally, and pulled Newt down onto the bed beside him, fumbling the lamp off with one hand. His mouth brushed across Newt’s lips, as hot and close as the rest of him. “I know what I want to do.”

But there was a new, knotty light behind Thomas’s eyes. Whatever they’d offered, part of him wanted it. The foundations were already trembling, and Newt could hear the holes growing larger.

That last month was the worst of his life. Every moment with Thomas cut, because now there was a definite ending. Thomas was quiet a lot, and this time Newt couldn’t find anything to say. They spent every moment together that they could find, and their families let them have their space. Sex between them grew sharp, tense. The summer drained away into fall, and Newt began to wonder if he’d been living an entirely other life, just months ago before New York was even a blip on anyone’s radar. If somewhere, he and Thomas were still living that life, not watching the end approach like an inescapable electrical storm. 

**

So Thomas went. Thomas went, and Newt stayed.

There were no phone calls. No emails. Newt couldn’t bring himself to text, and Thomas never texted back. Within three months, Thomas had paid Newt’s mum back every cent he owed her, and then some. “It’s interest,” his mum said, smiling fondly at the letter—handwritten—that had come with the last check. “He paid me interest. That boy.”

Eventually, Newt’s mum bought the Volvo from Thomas’s mother, for Sonya to use. Logically it made sense: the insurance was too much, and there was no earthly reason anymore for Thomas’s mother to keep two vehicles. But Newt had never been so grateful to have his own car. He couldn’t look at Sonya’s new present, certainly couldn’t ride in it without feeling sick.

Newt mostly just tried not to think about it, or about the sad looks his mum and sister constantly aimed his way, or the peppy invites to do things like ride bikes and swim at the community pool. He busted his bank account buying work-appropriate clothing and suffered through a harrowing three-part interview process, the last of which was an entire day spent one-on-one with various Last City department heads. When he was done, he drove home and collapsed on the couch, a shattered ball of nerves. But the next day, he got the official job offer.

It was fascinating work, though there wasn’t nearly enough to keep him from sinking back into his head as soon as he got home each evening. He began to have trouble sleeping, to look forward to being in the office more than coming home. He got sorted onto a junior designer team, spearheaded by Ava Paige herself. Newt’s team was young like him, led by a scary looking older kid with a hidden heart of gold and a girl closer to Newt’s age who had never once learned the definition of giving up and probably never would. Gally and Brenda were mouthy, obstinate, and ferocious, and they dashed out on limbs so often in pursuit of the projects they wanted that Newt found himself following just to keep some sanity in the same vicinity as his new friends. 

They reminded him of Thomas, and that hurt.

By the time they bulled their way into a business meeting with the local branch of Glade Urban Planning, their team had dwindled to just the three of them—all the others had gone to safer pastures in-house or backed out of the field entirely—and Newt was begging for the distraction of seeing exactly how their abstract dreams would take physical shape in the business world. 

He didn’t learn all that at the meeting. He got Minho instead.

Minho was a bloody breath of fresh air, right about the time that Newt felt his head starting to slip under. He was fast paced in everything, had an eidetic memory for shape and layout, and visibly enjoyed yanking the poor sad kid he’d just met out into the real world any chance he got. Pretty much chaos in a bottle. Not Newt’s scene at all, but he liked it. What’s more, his mum liked it, and dumped Newt in Minho’s lap whenever it was offered. Newt went on his first road trip with Minho, just a short little jag up and down Highway 1 on a weekend, but it cleared his head as surely as the wind blew all the coastal fog out to sea, and maybe cleared his heart a little, too.

Six months into Newt’s job, Ava Paige absconded with him to a small symposium on the east coast, ostensibly to take notes and learn more about the larger impact of his job. Newt was quite happy to do all of that, squeezing into presentations and panels with his tablet in hand, taking notes and working on his designs. And then he walked into a tiny conference room to find Thomas front and center, directing Glade’s way through a Power Point on cost effective subsidized housing for low income communities, under the watchful eye of a superior.

He wouldn’t think it at the time—too preoccupied with his first glimpse of Thomas since they’d parted ways—but later, Newt would remember the fervent glint in Thomas’s eyes and the set of his jaw, the way his hands danced as he talked, and realize he was witnessing Tommy’s calling.

Afterward, Newt stayed for the Q and A, reseating himself off to the side and watching the approving nods of Thomas’s superior as Thomas held court. In the middle of a question, Thomas caught sight of Newt and trailed off completely, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open, only dragging himself back to attention when the original commenter said, “Mr. Edelman?” 

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sorry.” And on he went with clear understanding of the question and the chops to answer it. But he stole looks at Newt again and again, all the way through.

“Hey,” Newt said when everyone had cleared out, waving awkwardly and then shoving his hands into his pockets. His shirt was less than crisp and his trousers were wrinkled, and he was so very aware of that.

“Hey.” Thomas looked and sounded winded. He wet his lips, stepped forward and stopped, then stepped forward again, lifting his arms. He hugged Newt, a real hug, if inelegant, and Newt hugged him back. “It’s good to see you. I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I’m here with Ava Paige,” Newt offered. Hands back in pockets, swaying from foot to foot.

“You got the job at The Last City, then?” Thomas smiled, a ghost of what Newt remembered. “Mom said something about it, but…”

“Yeah. I love it.”

Thomas nodded. His smile grew a little softer. “Good. I’m glad.”

There wasn’t much else to say, except that Thomas insisted they trade phone numbers. To keep in touch. And then they both had places to be, and superiors to follow around like ducklings. 

The symposium finished out the next day without their paths crossing again. Newt took a walk through Central Park to say he’d done it, chafing his hands together as the wintry light slipped toward dusk, then got himself a genuine New York bagel with lox and caught a cab to the airport.

Traffic was rough, slush clogging the streets and new snow coming down, but he made it. He got to his gate just in time for boarding, only to find himself knocked off his flight as a snowstorm roared up the state, stranding everyone on the east coast, leaving all the hotels full up and Newt with nowhere to go. He called his mum to let her know, dithered at the concierge for an hour arranging a flight for the next day, and ate a dinner his steadily knotting stomach barely accepted. 

At last, he picked up his mobile again.

“Hey, Tommy?” He hadn’t meant to use the nickname, and didn’t think he imagined the pause on the other end.

“Newt, what’s up?”

“Listen.” He chewed his lip, looking at the ceiling for strength. “I need a favor.”

“You’re stranded,” Thomas said immediately, and laughed that low huff Newt remembered so well. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Say no more. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Thomas had a car, unlike many New Yorkers: a weekend loan from Glade NYC for purposes of the symposium. He pushed the door open from inside, leaning over the center console in jeans and a thick sweater too big for his frame, and then drove Newt back into the city, to an older building on the Lower East Side near the river.

“It’s not big,” he said, unlocking the door and pausing to kick off his boots in the front hall. “But the heating’s great and the couch is comfy.”

Newt never made it to the couch.

It wasn’t a decision. It was the late hour, and Newt’s exhaustion. It was the touch of their hands when Thomas passed him a mug of cocoa. It was Thomas, his smell and his voice infusing the space entirely, surrounding Newt once again as it had for the last four years.

Thomas was thinner, even taller, his hair soft and tangled. Still a runner, with wiry muscle and lean limbs. Still tasted like Newt remembered, in all ways. Looked tired, but finally—once—smiled just like he used to.

It was fitting back into a groove Newt had been knocked fully out of, and finally feeling like he’d opened the door to his home again.

In the morning, they got out of bed together, then Thomas fed him breakfast and took him to the airport, blinking into the darkness as he drove. He got out of the car when Newt did, but made no move to approach him. They parted with a wave. Despite the security guard urging vehicles through the drop off area, Thomas stood outside his car, his hands deep in his pockets and his coat collar high around his throat, watching Newt all the way through the door. 

Newt got home. He dumped his suitcase in the front hall, then went straight to Minho’s house, sat on the couch, and tried to find a way to explain Thomas to his friend. 

“I think I finally broke it off with my ex,” he said. And if he cried over it for the first time in six months, well, no one was there to see but Minho.

And then he could move on.

**

What he didn’t expect was the return of the drought.

Newt dated. Guys, always. He’d never been confused about that. It would last a week, maybe two. Once, four full weeks before Newt called it off. He sat at home in the dark, clenching his hands around each other, touching his mouth, thinking. None of them had gotten further than a few kisses, a lazy grope, but Newt… Newt sat outside of it every time, looking in and wondering at the feel of this boy’s mouth against his and that boy’s hands on his chest, the slickness of lips, the pressure, analyzing. Picking it apart but wholly out of it, to the point where he felt a little sick at the level of detachment. He liked these guys. They were nice, funny, and fit, so why couldn’t he _feel_ it? 

Cue his second sexual crisis, and there was Thomas again, at its center.

He tried, again and again. Sometimes he felt a low burn, a sweet heat curling around the base of his spine that raised his head and made him think, maybe… Maybe this time. But never the all-encompassing shock and flash, the tangle shattering all over his insides. He still woke up at night with that ghost sensation on his skin, need clenching his belly, words caught on his lips. 

Every time, with Thomas. _Every time._

He started to think he was making it up, embroidering the memory. With barely a shred of arousal in daylight hours and a mere whiff on the wind no matter who he kissed, how could it be otherwise? 

And then Thomas came back.

It was instantaneous. Newt took one look—a vendors’ hall in San Diego with Minho at his side and Brenda leading over the friend she’d made last month at a workshop in Albuquerque, _Hey, guys, this is Thomas_ —saw the light flare in Thomas’s eyes and the smile carve wide and open over his face, and everything inside Newt lit up at once. He shook with the blow.

He was in Thomas’s arms before the hour was out, ducking the panel they were both supposed to see, flat against the door of the suite Thomas shared with his coworker upstairs. Thomas kissed his mouth and wrestled out of his jacket, hiking Newt’s legs around his hips, Newt’s shirt half unbuttoned, both of them already out of breath, both of them half out of their minds. Afterward, Newt sat gasping against the door, his legs in Thomas’s lap, running his hand through his hair and marveling at the sheer magnitude of everything.

“Fuck.” Thomas’s head rolled along the wall until they were grinning stupidly at each other. “Hey. Hey, Newt.”

And that was how it went. 

Newt ended up in New York. Thomas wandered back over to the west coast. They met halfway: in Nashville, in Minneapolis, in Salt Lake City. They fell into each other’s beds, and then back out of them. The texts started up again: Newt got a tabby and sent a photo of him stuck on top of the bookshelf, yowling. Thomas sent one back of his calico sleeping in a shopping bag, along with a message asking if Newt had named his cat after an old man or if the shelter had done that for him. Newt texted that people with cats called Mary had no excuse for being so speciesist. 

Texts were followed by emails. Their teams, their friends, began to intermingle on their own. Brenda adopted this smirk that had Newt flushing and picking at his collar. Minho and Thomas went running at godawful o’clock in strange cities. They all went home, and then the next conference would come up: wash, rinse, repeat.

Five years passed. It was hard to concentrate on downsides. Newt’s designs were nominated for national awards. His team received international recognition for services rendered to society. Thomas pissed off his CEO—a member of the old guard named Lawrence—then took his department apart from the inside and convinced the board to reallocate labor and funding until subsidized housing started springing up as homes, not block rooms with nothing but the bare minimum. Affordable places to live instead of to merely exist. Forbes singled him out as the new face to watch in urban planning. Other private companies started trying to poach him, without success; Thomas seemed wired into Glade NYC.

Newt’s career was on the rise, Thomas’s was shooting higher than a rocket. Still they met up, still they tumbled into each other’s gravity wells, and all the while, Newt’s misgivings built. Eventually, they couldn’t be ignored.

He still tried—still dated—but nowadays without expectation; just a sort of resigned acceptance of an enjoyable evening, a lasting friendship if he was lucky. That was all. Sometimes—when another budding relationship went sour, when everything was only lukewarm on Newt’s end and he could see the imbalance shining from the other person’s eyes—Newt wished he’d never helped Thomas with that essay. But it was fleeting, a type of pain he didn’t want to encourage. The man Thomas had become... Well, Newt wouldn’t trade him for anything.

A couple times, Newt considered a move of his own. He was talented, in demand, and there were firms in New York, good, competitive firms where he suspected he’d thrive. In the end, he never went, because of the one thing that, try as he might, he could not get out of his head:

Thomas had gone after his degree with single-minded ferocity, just as he went after the funding for the housing coup that took New York state by storm, just as he had first gone after his dream externship in NYC. What Thomas aimed to get, he got, or he gave it his damnedest. 

This is how Newt knows:

If Thomas really wanted more than what they have, he wouldn’t wait. He would make damn sure it happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyric at the chapter head is from _YOUTH_ by Troye Sivan.


	8. Chapter 8

_Oh, my heart hurts.  
Oh, my heart hurts._

 

**7**

 

He has to stop. But he’s gone too far already.

Thomas fills his every thought again, and this time Newt knows just how deep he’s fallen, and the word for it.

He can’t concentrate at work on Friday, taps his pen until the end flies off, loses himself in contemplation of bare walls and jiggles his leg until it aches as badly as it used to after he first broke it.

He’s a fucking idiot. He didn’t keep to the rules.

 _A week or so._ Any day now, Thomas is going to get back on a plane and leave, and drag Newt’s heart after him.

He leaves for lunch at one, goes down to the cafe and gets his regular sandwich and soda. As usual, Aris takes his break and sits down with Newt, straddling a chair, and Newt just…No.

“Aris,” he sighs, pushing his food back. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Aris looks at him blankly. “Can’t?”

Newt swallows—for an instant, doubts—then draws himself together. He trusts his instincts and he knows what this is. “I can’t date you.”

To his surprise, Aris smiles down at the table and shakes his head. “I know.”

“You…” Oh. “You know.”

Aris’s grin makes him look like a little boy. “I like you, Newt. But I’ve seen you with him. I know.”

“Oh.” Well, this is embarrassing. “I’m sorry?”

Aris shrugs. “Always kinda felt like you weren’t all here. Not,” he hurries, “that you’re not _here._ Or attentive, or kind. I’d date you, Newt, absolutely. You’re amazing. But I know you can’t be here when you’re… elsewhere. Does that—”

“Yeah.” Newt clears his throat. Scratches his head. “Yeah.”

Maybe given time, a friendship, a connection, it would have happened. Maybe he would even have found something close to what he’d had. But he’s not drawn to Aris, not to anyone else, like he’s always, always been drawn to Tommy.

“So.” Aris splays his hands on the table and aims that gormless grin straight at Newt. “Wingman me?”

Newt laughs, for the first time all day.

**

He calls Thomas.

He _knows_ he should stay away. But he’s tired and his heart is sore, and all he wants is Tommy for as long as he can get him.

Thomas answers with “You’d better not be at work.”

“Of course not,” Newt sniffs. “It’s Saturday.”

“Uh huh.”

“Actually, I was thinking about getting lunch.” There’s a lump in his throat a mile wide and all he can really think about is the way Thomas _touched_ him that night, backed him off, took the time Newt needed to get them on the same page. It’s been two days. He can still taste Thomas on his teeth.

“Good, so was I.” Thomas pauses. “Uh, you want to join me?”

If he analyzes that pause, he’ll talk himself out of this. “Sure. Shall I pick you up or…”

“Yeah. Yes. Actually, I’m downtown, I was just heading back home, is that too far to come?”

The way Newt’s feeling right now, nowhere is too far. “Give me cross streets. And stay in one place this time, you wanker.”

“That was _one time,_ Newt, like two years ago, I swear to god, you’re like an elephant.”

Newt picks him up not too far from Glade Oakland’s satellite office in the Castro. They get burgers to go and a bag of steak-cut French fries to share, then they take a walk as they eat. Thomas is dressed in a polo and khakis, his hair lit with highlights by the sun and tumbling in the wind from the bay. He tilts his head back into the warmth. Newt watches unabashedly, tracing the arc of Thomas’s throat with his eyes.

“So.” He’s too restless to be choosy over his words. “You realize this meal could have been free.”

Thomas’s face scrunches for a moment, then clears. He ducks his head. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I meant to text you again. And I would have won that bet, just so we’re clear.”

“Sure, Tommy, sure.” Newt concentrates on his burger, suddenly afraid to see Thomas’s expression. “Why didn’t you?” God, he really needs to shut up.

“The guy brought Teresa with him,” Thomas answers, confirming Minho’s assessment of the situation. “Shit. Absolutely masterful ploy on his part. She’s been working in Europe, I hadn’t seen her in a year.”

Well, at least there’s that. And Newt’s heart really needs to fuck right off, thanks. He’s got no place telling Thomas what he should do with his time. “How did you two meet?”

“We were in the same courses. You know, the ones Glade offered?” Newt nods, so Thomas goes on. “She initially trained with them, but she ended up going to WKD in the end. Better package, and frankly, Glade didn’t know what to do with someone as smart as she is.”

“But you changed that,” Newt says, smiling wryly.

Thomas shakes his head. “Oh, I’m nowhere near Teresa’s caliber.”

 _Agree to disagree._ “You know her well, then?”

He can feel Thomas looking at him, though it’s disconcerting with Thomas’s eyes shielded by his sunglasses. “Yeah. She’s been a good friend.”

“Good.” It _is_ good. It’s good for Thomas to have people he can rely on. Even if they all seem to have the habit of falling out of his direct sphere only to turn up later through work. At clubs and bars. Newt wonders if he has anything else in common with Teresa. It’s much harder to push the thought away than usual; his walls have been battered almost to the ground.

Thomas steals a potato from the bag and Newt swats him away. “Hey. Leave my chips alone.”

“Fries, Newt. These are fries.”

“Either way, they’re mine. You ate your half, remember?”

“But your half’s better.” Thomas pouts at him. Newt glares back for a full five seconds before sighing and passing the bag over. Thomas takes a fry out and gives it to Newt.

“Oh. Thank you. So much.”

“I live to serve.” Thomas munches on the rest of his ill-gotten gains while Newt tries to figure out the best way to eat his bun now that the meat and most of the tomato are gone. “Anyway, I think WKD’s plan backfired, because all Teresa and I did was talk about the shit we got up to in training. Her boss couldn’t even get a word in.”

Newt snorts. “You think he was going to offer you a job?”

“Oh, yeah.” What he can see of Thomas’s face goes a bit flat as he gazes down the hill toward the ocean. His shoulders hunch, a little. “But I already have a job.”

 _Yes, and it’s going to take you away from me again._ Good lord, can he just _stop_ for a minute? “Don’t answer that,” Newt mutters to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing.” But it’s not nothing. And it shouldn’t be connected, but apparently it all is, because the thing that comes out of Newt’s mouth next is, “You left the other night.”

To his surprise, Thomas stops walking entirely. Newt turns back; Thomas stands with his hands on his hips, looking away from Newt across the city as it drops down toward the sea. Newt doesn’t even know which night he’s referring to. Both, probably. Both are great echoing spaces inside him, not quite bad or good, but there. Always there.

“Which night?” Thomas faces him again, but Newt knows his eyes aren’t on him yet.

“Well.” He flaps a hand out. “Well, the night after the game.” Best start with the easier one.

A smile steals across Thomas’s face, flashing his teeth and gone in the next instant. “Okay, that one, I was afraid I’d wake you up.”

“Why?”

“I was restless. I tried to sleep but all I did was lie there, uh, looking at you.” He clears his throat roughly. “You were exhausted. I was too wired to sit still. You know how I am.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“So.” 

“Okay.” And now he doesn’t want to ask about the other night, the one that blew him apart inside, that brought everything crashing back down. Thomas could have left the second time for a hundred reasons, and Newt’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to hear ninety of them.

Thomas takes his sunglasses off and turns fully toward Newt, and somehow Newt had forgotten just how expressive his eyes are. “Hey, come over.”

A familiar shiver rattles down Newt’s spine. “What, now?” It’s two in the afternoon.

Thomas’s mouth twitches at one corner. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Newt says after a moment. He crumples up the heel of his burger in the wrapping and brushes his fingers off against his jeans. “Yeah, alright.”

Thomas looks relieved. “If you don’t have anything to do, I mean.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Newt says, probably too fast, and Thomas gives him a full smile at last.

**

Newt tries to make it last, tries to draw it out, milk everything he can out of this moment and imprint it flawlessly in his mind. But it’s impossible with Tommy. He loses himself in the saltiness of Thomas’s skin, the give of shoulder muscle between his teeth, the strain in Thomas’s thighs as he eases into Newt’s body. The way the daylight shadows his face but lights his nape and the edges of his ears. The taste of his tongue as he kisses Newt’s mouth open and the sound of the words he whispers, guttural in his throat. Newt tangles his hands in Thomas’s hair and kisses him harder, rocks into him until Thomas is gasping, head thrown back, curses spilling from his lips.

Newt drops back to the bed, panting, dragging Thomas with him. He can’t seem to let go. This is going to be a problem just as soon as Thomas comes back to himself again.

Thomas’s laugh is exhausted and beautiful. He kisses the side of Newt’s face, still inside Newt, and slurs, “Wanna do that every day,” and Newt says— 

“Yes.” Chokes, really. “So do I.” Oh god, what is he _saying?_ But it keeps coming out, a dam cracked. “If you’re serious.”

Thomas’s brow furrows. His eyes skip between Newt’s.

Newt swallows. His cheeks burn, but this is what he’s made of now, might as well start owning it. “Don’t joke.”

Thomas’s eyes continue to dart restlessly. He catches Newt’s lip with this thumb. “Newt.”

Newt’s own name in Tommy’s voice just after sex is the best sound ever to exist, but today, it’s also the most painful. 

“Are you saying…” Thomas trails off. He licks his lips, then shifts up, pulling carefully away. Newt winces at the discomfort as they separate, but it’s nothing to the weight of Thomas’s gaze now. “What _are_ you saying?”

“I’m saying.” Newt searches for different words. There are none. “I don’t know that I can do this anymore.”

Thomas licks his lips again. He only does this when he’s nervous, so nervous he can’t control the tic. Newt’s stomach swoops, leaden. “You mean sex.”

Newt rubs his face with both hands. But he won’t hide. He _will_ finish this, and he won’t be a coward about it. He started it after all. “I mean this kind of sex. I don’t want… only whenever we’re both in the same city.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Thomas breathes, and meets his mouth, hard and searching. Newt can’t manage any sort of distance: he folds into it like the addict he is, sweeping the familiar taste back onto his tongue.

“Wait, what?” he gasps when he can think again. “What?”

Thomas stills, studying Newt from above. “What? I feel the same way.” 

Does he though? Newt’s words threaten to dry up. But there’s only one thing that really needs saying and no roundabout way to say it.

“No, Tommy, I’m mad for you,” he huffs, inhaling sharply at the end. His heart gives a giant sideways thump. He’s never felt spread so wide, all his innards on display.

Thomas touches his face.

“Good.” The word hovers above Newt’s lips. The next kiss takes Newt’s breath away, sharp and sweet and penetrative, licking all the way down through him to the arousal he’d thought well banked.

“You,” Newt says right out of the kiss when at last it ends. “You want this? More?”

“Yes, I do. Unless you don’t?”

How can someone so confident look so utterly uncertain? Newt shakes his head, incredulous. “I just told you I’m already done for. I’ll do whatever it takes, Tommy. I’d make the drive every night if it were possible. If you’d have me.”

Thomas’s mouth shivers. His eyes drop to Newt’s lips again. “What, all five minutes of it?”

What? “The hell are you talking about, five minutes, what five minutes?”

“The drive every night.” Thomas shrugs, but he’s now looking somewhere around Newt’s sternum. “Now that I’ve moved back.”

“You’ve moved back.” Newt’s heart is scrabbling right up into his throat again. “Where?”

Thomas raises up a little to look around the whole of the room. His mouth opens, then closes, and he looks down at Newt with a sheepish smile.

 _“Here?”_ Newt gapes anew at four cream walls and a yellow ceiling, bland furniture, emotionless curtains. He’d thought this was an Airbnb. This isn’t Thomas’s bed, or his dresser, or his anything. There’s nothing of him in this place. “But…”

“Stuff’s on its way across country,” Thomas admits. “I still have to go back. Get Mary.”

A week or so. To work out odds and ends. To establish at Glade Oakland. To attend _a presentation with a partner design firm._

“You.” Newt punches his arm, a weak off-center smack that ends with his fingers gripping Thomas’s bicep, his thumb trembling against the muscle. “Tommy—”

“Not the most well thought out plan, I admit. You know I’m no good at plans.” Thomas’s shoulders give another bob, as skittish as a kitten. “Was either going to have you or put myself through hell over it.”

Without knowing Newt’s mind, without even knowing if Newt was interested, or willing, or free. He looks as unsettled as Newt has ever seen him, and as desperate.

“Minho knew,” Thomas says, hesitant, and somehow there’s no shock in that. “I asked him not to tell you. I wanted to… be the one. But then I couldn’t figure out how.” 

Newt remembers a phone call, rushed paperwork back in New York, a few separate times Minho looked on the verge of saying something, and a hazy moment in the crush of the bar when Minho glowered at Thomas like he wanted to throttle him right there in front of everybody.

It’s on the tip of his tongue to tell Thomas he should have just said. But there has to be a reason he didn’t. Thomas always needs a damn good reason to stay silent over something he cares about.

“I don’t want you to come back just for me, Tommy.” Because that would kill him, if Thomas gave up his dream only to resent Newt for it later. Having him in the meantime would be heaven, but it would be a finite heaven, just waiting to be wrenched away from them again.

“I want to,” Thomas says softly, but goes on before Newt can protest. “But I didn’t. I also came back for a job.”

“A job here.”

“Through Glade.”

Newt must look like a fish, the way his mouth keeps opening and closing. “But it’s not New York.”

Thomas snorts. “Better not be.”

Newt shakes his head. Everything is warring inside, telling him to _stay silent! Don’t sabotage this!_ But it’s college all over again: he can’t steer Thomas toward his own ends at the expense of Thomas’s future. “It’s not in the top five nationally.”

“Top eight though.”

He’s starting to panic. _“Tommy.”_

Thomas takes his hands, folds them up in a firm grip and looks Newt in the eye. “Stop for a second, just… Newt? Listen.”

Newt tries. After a harrowing moment, his chest loosens and he actually manages it.

“I’ve thought this through. Hell, I’ve been thinking it through since…” Thomas takes a shuddery breath. “Probably since I dropped you off at the JFK terminal that first time. I had a thousand different plans, and none of them made any sense and all I could see was you throwing up your hands and shaking your head at me. So I _thought_ about it. I put you aside and I looked at the bigger picture.”

Newt grips his fingers, in lieu of words that likely don’t exist.

“But it turns out you’re always in my bigger picture, Newt. You’re _always_ there. Finally I just had to stop pretending you weren’t.”

Maybe the next thing Newt says isn’t a response he’ll be able to live with, but it’s a truth nonetheless. “Thomas,” he says carefully, kind of hating himself. “Coming back to me is not going to fulfill you. Not entirely. I do pay attention to you, you know. I read everything about you, every interview. Every bio piece they write. You have so much at your fingertips, so many things you’re planning to do. Are you sure that here is the best place to do them?”

“Well, New York certainly isn’t.”

Newt shuts his eyes briefly. “Things will be different, now Lawrence is gone. He’s not in your way anymore.”

“Do you know who they’re putting in his place?” He searches Newt’s face until Newt has to shake his head. “Janson. Rat Man, from Corporate. I haven’t known him long, but I’ve seen enough to know that I do not want to work under him.”

“That could be your job someday,” Newt reminds him. 

“Maybe. Maybe not. But it doesn’t matter.” Thomas drops his head. “Newt, this is my home. If I can do some good for the neighborhoods, the _people_ I grew up around, then I want to do that. There’s no better place for me and nothing I want more. Except maybe you.”

Newt bites his lip. It’s the only way to hold what’s happening inside him at bay. The silence hovers between them, waiting. “And you say you’re not good at plans.”

“Depends on the motivation, I guess.” Thomas blushes.

Newt wants to be motivation enough. In spite of all his logic, in spite of everything cool and impassive that tells him it’s never wise to weave one’s entire life around one person, he wants to be Tommy’s everything.

“And you…” Thomas’s hands skate down Newt’s arms and back up to entangle their fingers. “You want this?”

“Yes. Yes, I want this.” _More than anything._ He decides he’s done being silent. “For a long time now.”

Thomas, so articulate for the last few minutes, doesn’t respond. His expression has gone disturbingly blank, sparking off a distant alarm in Newt’s belly. Newt rearranges their hands so that their fingers are fully linked, his thumbs pressing on the backs of Thomas’s hands. Holding him there. “The other night, Tommy. Tell me why you left.”

Thomas’s fingers twitch. Newt feels it when he forcibly relaxes. 

“I couldn’t stay,” he finally whispers. “Not after… Not after.”

Newt studies his face. Refuses to jump to conclusions.

“And I didn’t think you—” Thomas ducks his head. “God, this is so hard. I used to be sure. When it came to you, I was sure of everything. But then I left and you… and we…”

Drifted. There are days that Newt still feels that knife through his lungs and up into his heart, as though Thomas had only just climbed into his mother’s car and driven out of his life. He knows he couldn’t have done anything but what he had done. He was so young; he could only use the tools he had, and back then, he hadn’t had many. But it still blisters afresh, the _why didn’t you just_ s and _why couldn’t you only_ s. 

Of course he’d wondered if Thomas regretted it. But next to his own swelling grief, it was distant and muted, as thin as gauze.

Thomas’s eyes drag over his face; Newt feels them like they have a physical grip on every breath. “Newt, you’re always so... It’s like I know you better than anyone else in this world, but then sometimes I don’t know you at all.”

Newt’s voice has deserted him again; dread forces it back. “You _do_ know me, you’re the only one that knows me.” He _has_ to know that.

“I do,” Thomas says, locking Newt’s gaze. His fingers tighten between Newt’s. “Newt, of course I do. But not always what you’re thinking. Not what you’re thinking about me, anyway.”

“I think about you all the time.”

Thomas cups his face. “I know that, too. Just, when I’m not with you, it’s harder to remember.”

“Tommy, I’m so sorry,” he croaks. “I should have said.”

“Why? I didn’t.” Thomas looks ceilingward, drawing a deep, visible breath. “That night, though. If I’d stayed that night, after what we did… I didn’t think I could hold it together anymore. I needed a minute.” He laughs, a mere burst of air. “A minute. I needed a _year_ after that. You are really, really hard to get over. I never actually did, and then Thursday night happened and I just.” 

He stops, just breathing. Newt lets him.

“I knew I’d changed everything,” Thomas continues after a moment. “I knew that. Maybe not for you, but for me. I didn’t know how you felt. But I knew how I felt. And I knew what I’d done, it all just kind of hit me all of a sudden, the job, the move. Being with you again, but in the way I _wanted_ to be. It had nothing to do with you, Newt, not like you’re thinking. But I couldn’t stay. I walked here.” He sighs and looks around. “I walked _home._ I had to think, or I would have… I don’t know what I would have done.”

Newt gets it. Oh, he gets it. “If it makes you feel any better, I thought I’d broken everything that night, as well.”

Thomas brushes Newt’s bottom lip again with his thumb. “You couldn’t ever break this.”

He touches Thomas’s brow in return, a slide across warm skin. “You know, when you make a decision, you don’t pull any punches.”

Thomas drops his head to Newt’s chest and groans low in his throat. “Yeah, well. Minho told me about all your dates. I was going crazy.”

Newt blinks. “But… I haven’t dated,” he says, trying to meet Thomas’s eyes again.

Thomas lifts his head slowly. “You haven’t.”

“I can’t.” _Oh god, you beautiful fool, none of them are you and—_ “It wouldn’t be fair, I can’t—give them anything.” _Not when I give you everything._

“No dates.”

“None. Not for nearly a year.”

“But Minho said…” Thomas’s expression begins to change, just as Newt recalls statements about popularity, about someone never at a loss for willing partners, and starts to wonder how much Minho played _him,_ too.

“Gonna kill him,” Thomas seethes, a single word mushed together. “I’m going to feed him his own lying tongue on a bed of lettuce.”

Newt laughs, hard. “Can I help?”

Thomas’s grin is desperately fond. He drops his weight down atop Newt, shifting until Newt sucks a breath through his teeth. Newt raises both knees around Thomas’s hips. Thomas squeezes his thigh. 

“God, I love you, Newt. I love you. So much.” His voice is starting to shake, cracking in a way Newt has never heard. He takes Thomas’s face in both hands, forcing him to look him in the eye.

“It’s alright, Tommy,” he says. “The feeling is quite mutual, I assure you.”

Thomas doesn’t move for a long moment. When he does, he rubs their noses together.

Newt kisses him. Again, and again, and again, for as long as it takes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...annnnnd the final chapter will be an epilogue. ^_^
> 
> Lyrics at the chapter head belong to _ILYSB_ by LANY.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come visit me on Tumblr! @thegertie
> 
> (In fact, if you liked this story, it's probably a really good idea because eventually I'm going to be asking people which additional ficlets they want to see in this universe. Thomas POV included. If not, no harm, no foul. ^_^)

_You’re in my blood, you’re in my veins, you’re in my head.  
I’m saying it’s you, babe._

 

**Epilogue**

 

It’s a bright and breezy Sunday, with clouds scudding across a cobalt sky. They’ve commandeered the shaded nook on the back patio, where the bistro has interspersed couches with canvas chairs, and have spread their considerable brunch order across two of the rickety wrought iron tables. Frypan is perched on a stool, pouring out mimosas for anyone who wants one; Brenda and Gally share the sunny side of the tables, soaking up the heat. Teresa has tucked herself into an ancient puffy armchair that creaks whenever she moves, and Minho is lazing on what looks like a chaise lounge, already half asleep.

Thomas, for his part, barely seems aware of any of it. They’re on the couch, Newt seated between his knees. Tommy’s chest is warm against his back, one arm draped over Newt’s shoulder. His hand rests just at Newt’s collarbone, where his thumb traces a quiet line back and forth. 

Thomas has barely looked away from Newt since they sat down; even his toast and eggs seem to be an afterthought that he absently fumbles for every few minutes. His nose brushes Newt’s hair again and again, the occasional exhalation displacing the strands. Being the crux of this level of focus is intoxicating; Newt has never wished so hard that he could hear Tommy’s thoughts.

Alas, he gets to hear everyone else’s thoughts instead.

“Of course I knew,” Teresa says, taking a noisy slurp from the straw in her smoothie. “But Tom says, ‘Don’t tell him, Teresa—’” in a ridiculously deep voice “‘—because I don’t know what he wants yet.’ And then we get to that bar and I _meet_ the guy, and I’m like, oh... I think we know what he wants. But you know, whatever, I just work here.”

Watching Tommy’s face while Teresa speaks is the highlight of Newt’s socialization capabilities today—the faint, fond smile that steals over Thomas’s mouth, the hollow echo that digs briefly behind his eyes and then flickers away again. Newt feels like he’s never seen so much detail as now, even having known Thomas for years. Perhaps better than anyone on this planet, including his immediate family. Thomas’s chest rises and falls against Newt’s spine, heat seeping into Newt’s shoulders. Thomas’s fingers turn lazily and retangle with Newt’s as they listen, turn and retangle.

Yep, Newt’s no good for anything else this morning.

Minho snorts from his side of the table and sits up to take a heaping bite of a Greek omelette. “At least you had only just figured Newt out. This has been going on for years. I finally had to tell each of these two shanks that the other one was dating around to get them to wake up.”

Frypan spits out his drink, and Gally leans forward, sticking his neck out across the table. “You did what? He did what?” he asks, swiveling to Thomas and Newt. Newt nods his head slowly. He’s perfectly willing to throw Minho to the wolves over this, for the next month at least.

“Well, they weren’t getting the job done on their own,” Minho says.

Brenda squints at Minho for several seconds, then upends her glass of ice water over his head. Minho yells and rockets up out of his seat. Brenda’s giant Rottweiler, Jorge, who had been snoring at her feet, leaps up and starts dancing around, barking like the end of days as Brenda lays into Minho.

“How could you do that? You stupid, stupid—You could have _ruined_ this!” 

“I was just trying to help!” 

“Well, stop helping!” She waves at Thomas and Newt. “They’re idiots, what if they hadn’t figured it out?”

“Hey,” Newt interjects, but Brenda just points a finger at him.

“Do not make me bring Sipsters into this, _Newton.”_

“Sipsters?” Thomas leans closer. “What’s that?”

Newt clears his throat and grabs his orange juice off the table to cover it up. “I have no idea what she’s talking about.”

“I knew what I was doing,” Minho hisses, struggling to push Jorge down as he jumps repeatedly to lick his face. “Yuck, Jorge, gross.”

“They do not need—Jorge, down!” Jorge settles immediately, parking himself on his haunches in front of Brenda’s knees, his tail going madly. “Good boy,” she coos, “good _job_ with this numb-nuts.” She gives him a piece of bacon, then glowers at Minho, the same hand inching toward the full pitcher of water at the center of the spread. “They do not need that kind of interference, got it?”

“Gally. Come on, help me out here.”

“Might have been a little over the top, man,” is all Gally says.

Minho glances around. Finding nothing but glares or sardonic smiles—and in Teresa’s case, a fair amount of plain old fashioned interest—he turns on Thomas, jabbing a finger at his nose. “I will kill you if you hurt my boy.”

“Which of us here is really in danger of that, Minho?” Thomas returns with a bit of an edge. Okay, so Tommy’s still out for blood, too. He shifts behind Newt, drawing up in height and linking their fingers in a newly affirmed grip.

“See?” Brenda gestures at the pair of them, then takes a mimosa from Frypan. “They were working it out. Slow as tar, but working.”

“Oh, please,” Minho sputters. “You guys were all there! Present company excluded,” he adds, nodding at Teresa, who nods back. “You all saw these shanks completely missing each other. Someone had to do something.”

Incredibly, Gally has gone silent. He looks consideringly at Thomas, his eyebrow hiked up.

“Gally, don’t you start,” Newt sighs.

Gally raises both hands in surrender. “I didn’t say anything.”

Thomas scoffs.

“Anyway. I wouldn’t have let anything happen,” Minho grumbles, flapping at his shirt to dry it. “If they klunked this up too, I would have grabbed them both and said something. They’re my best friends, I’d have taken care of it.” 

“We’re here, we’re here,” calls a voice from the other end of the patio, and there are Sonya and Harriet, weaving their way between other diners and around the bizarre found-art-fountain spewing water in the middle. “Got stuck behind a streetcar,” Sonya says when she reaches their cluster of chairs, her hand locked with Harriet’s behind her. “Harriet was all yelling, so they were yelling, everyone was yelling. Newt, where are you, you didn’t need to text six times, what the hell is so important that I get here to, _oh,_ oh my god.”

Newt smiles at his sister, making no move to get up just yet. “Hi, Sonya.” Thomas fidgets behind him, and Newt gives his hand a squeeze.

Sonya approaches like a child just spotting a field of fireflies, stopping on the other side of the tables. The look she gives Newt is so imploring, so painfully hopeful, that his heart clenches. “Is this, are you—?”

Newt nods, letting Thomas’s fingers curl around his again, and Sonya gives a great whoop, whirling around to envelop a startled Harriet.

“Oh, god, Harriet, this is Thomas, this is Newt’s best friend from when they were kids, they used to be together but then they were stupid!”

“I _know,_ babe,” Harriet soothes long-sufferingly, patting Sonya on the back. “You told me all of this, remember?”

Newt glances at Thomas only to find him looking back, brow furrowed. Newt nods, and moves to let him up. Thomas makes his way to Sonya’s side, waiting awkwardly while she disentangles herself from Harriet. “Hey, Sonya,” he says softly.

She yanks Thomas into a hug. “God, how long are you here?”

Thomas whispers into her ear, and Sonya lets out an unholy sound of glee, then crushes him into another hug that spins them around and has him laughing into her hair. But Newt can read the relief on his face, in his frame. He curls into Sonya, embracing her with both arms. His eyes meet Newt’s over her shoulder.

_You have nothing to worry about, Tommy. Nothing._

Then again…

“Alright,” he says after nearly half a minute, rolling his eyes, “may I please have him back now?”

Sonya lets Thomas go, and she and Harriet drag a second couch closer as Minho makes introductions. Thomas beelines immediately for Newt, insinuating himself behind him again and wrapping an arm close around his waist. The last of Thomas’s tension has dropped away, leaving him open, completely yielding. This is the way they used to fit, body to body. Newt turns his head, bumps Thomas’s nose with his own, and Thomas returns the gesture, eyes half-lidded, brushing his lips just barely against Newt’s.

“Oh, lord,” Sonya says, her nose scrunching up, “have they been doing this all day?”

 _“Yes,”_ Brenda bursts out, and everyone cackles. Thomas’s cheeks darken, but he doesn’t look at any of them, just raises his middle finger at the group as a whole, then cups Newt’s chin and gives him a proper kiss.

“Welcome home,” Newt whispers. _Because that’s where you are._

…

_It’s never very hard staying true when I’m staying true to you._

~fin~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love, love, love you for reading! I'm going offline tomorrow for surgery and therefore won't be johnny-on-the-spot with responses to any comments, but bear with me. I'll be back as soon as I'm not in danger of stupidity due to painkillers.
> 
> Lyrics at the chapter head are from Camila Cabello's _Never Be the Same_ (which, fyi, happens to be The Song for this fic).
> 
> Lyric at the end is, again, from Hawksley Workman's _Striptease_.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Hawksley Workman's _Striptease_ , and of course I have to thank Dua Lipa and her awesome song _New Rules_ , without which this fic would never have been born. (Granted, neither one of these boys is assholish enough to be the guy in the song, but it's still quite fitting.)
> 
> I put together a full soundtrack [**here**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKLVpDTZOPQ&list=PLbTDOH2zFVEkcQCU1xDveOTrgj78r3xnf) if anyone's interested.


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